


Crosshares Kingdom

by Grim_Grimory



Series: Crosshares Kingdom [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-05-17 05:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grim_Grimory/pseuds/Grim_Grimory
Summary: The West Rampage has taken the home of Coco Adel, who is forced on a journey away from her home and her people. Traveling across the continent where she meets many colorful characters in her search to find out what happened to her home and why.





	1. Chapter 1

Coco stepped out of the carriage, and then filled her lungs with sand.  
Sadly, there was nothing much that had resembled moisture that she had hoped for, but that was to be expected in a desert.

The golden sun lay high in the sky giving way to the passing of travelers in its wake. No clouds were strung up to even cast a stitch in the endless expansion of the blue sky to lay a pattern on the ground. In a place where sandstorms or dust clouds were common, the weather was very good to its people, and to the soldiers from the watchtowers who could easily see those who were entering the city; and those who started a fuss.  
Coco had looked up to see no passing of clouds or a steady breeze to cool her head. She clicked her tongue loudly giving no heed to the others who were waiting in line. She looked up again, and saw the city walls. There was probably no point in making the city walls so high, but she didn’t have time to dwindle; so she kept these obstute observations to herself.  
After deciding not to linger around cargo for too long, she drew her hood and made her way to the line.  
The gate guards kept their eyes on her when they caught glimpse of the gesture, but kept their position despite the slight arousal of suspicion.  
The line to Jili was usually full of life on a day like this, but no one was in the mood to feel happy after escaping the West Rampage. Many people had lost their families and their home; so all that remained stared at their feet giving no intention of a healthy conversation.

Heavy wool coats weighed down the crowd as sweat from each one had bleeded its way through the thick cloths. While the coats did provide some protection from the sun, these were meant for the winter climate and made the heat almost unbearable for the children. But for most, the coats were all they had on them and was the only thing that reminded them of home. Coco was no exception of this rule but forced herself forward without taking the hunter garbs she was so proud of off.

She gave a sigh of relief as she neared the gate to be shadowed from the sun. But it was then when something had caught her attention. A women who was not in the traditional plated armor and breastplate was closely staring at her.  
The woman's hair was on equal footing in the sun as it shined brightly by itself without the need for to to be reflected to anyone who started at her for too long. The sand in her hair acted like a glitter which made it worse.  
Coco’s attention was drawn to it simply because she was puzzled on how anyone could bear this heat without any form of protection of the sun. She stood out, which is what drew her attention.  
“So there lady, how’s your day been dune?” She smiled profusely at Coco, grinning teeth and all.  
Coco sighed in disbelief on what she had just heard. She was expecting to be denied entry, or at least interrogated a little. So the small talk was unexpected, especially that poor excuse of a pun. She didn’t know how the knight would reacted to her silence, but the knight continued.  
“You seem a bit more chipper than the rest of the people in this crowd. Tell me, something on your mind?”  
“I’ve come here looking for work.” Coco said with her eyes glued to the ground unaware of the politeness of the knight who kept quiet on her growling stomach.  
“Well why didn’t you say so! I’ll head over here and get the proper paperwork ready.” She gave another smile as she walked inside the watchtower leaving Coco to stare at the city the knights vowed to protect.  
The cheerful laughter of the townsfolk left the impression of eternal happiness. Not once in Coco’s life she would have expected to be put in the spot where the rest of the world resided. On the border line of poverty, no food, and no way to make money. Yet, like the townsfolk, she still needed to find happiness even in a world that already betrayed her.  
“And, there you go!” The knight quickly rushed back to give her the minimal amount of paper to seek a job in the city. “One thing you should know about the cactuses in the city.” The knight said turning before stating one last thing to Coco. “Stay sharp.”

Coco couldn’t move from the spot she was standing. As soon as she arrived, she was greeted with the most genuine happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time. These people didn’t ask about her lineage and seemed to not care. They were people who would accept anyone from any part of the world. That is why Coco couldn’t move. She was afraid to ruin the image before her.  
“Yang! I have a problem.” A girl with a similar style of clothing ran past Coco and into the watchtower.  
“Oh, what’s up Ruby.”  
There Coco could hear the non stop rambling of a maiden in distress trying to get out a sentence. So the only thing that was eligible was the repeated crying of a ‘missing Weiss.’

 

The first thing on Coco’s mind was finding a place to work. Even if it was just for the day, even an hour, would be enough for a little food.  
But it seems I found myself in the residential area.  
She gave a quick look around to find that her surroundings looked nothing like the one presented on the map. With the buildings and squares all looking the same, it seemed impossible to find your way out once lost.  
“This is just great.” Coco riffled through the papers the knight gave her in search of some way to find out where she was. Though, it wasn’t the map that had caught her attention, but the work papers that had been filled out. Throughout the entire ordeal, she couldn’t recall giving her name to that knight. Yet, the name Coco Adel was neatly written where her name should have been blank. “That knight… she couldn’t have known that-”  
“And what do you think you’re doing?!” Coco’s thoughts were interrupted by a shouting voice down the road. It wasn’t one of worry that would alert even the most private of citizens, but that of a angry women clearly being agitated. It was a voice that made people wonder if there was actually any trouble at all; but as a rule of hers, she checked it out.  
Down the road was a women with white hair in a ponytail staring down three obviously those with questionable intentions. The usual reaction to jump wasn’t there as the women seemed to threatening to even consider the three in her sight as one. Still, many things could still go wrong very quickly if things aren’t taken under control. So Coco took it upon herself to try to derail the conversation.  
“Oh good, locals. Can you gentlemen help me. I appear to have found myself lost so I was hoping you three could lead me in the right direction of the marketing district.”  
The three men turned to face Coco giving plenty time for the white haired women to slip by. But instead of fleeing, she began to rifle through her purse in search of something.  
“You turn around and get the hell out of here.” The one with the heaviest build said spitting in her face as he talked.  
“Well that’s no way of addressing a pri-. I mean, I could just as easily ask a guard for help, but I wouldn’t want to bother them for such a small task like asking directions.” Coco gave a crocodile smile that left all attention on her.  
The white hair girl sighed knowing she was no longer being bothered. “These are the reasons I can’t get anything nice for Ruby.”  
Did she say Ruby?  
“Right behind you is a main side road.” The lightest of the three stooges made conversation telling me the right way to leave. “Go down three blocks and take a left. Keeping going and you’ll eventually to the marketplace. Keep that in mind and don’t get lost this time around. Careful though, there are plenty of people in this streets even in broad daylight.  
“Can’t promise that I won’t get lost, but thanks for the directions.” Coco smiled as she looked down the road she needed to go. It was easy enough directions and she figured the three didn’t want many people around to go and look for them.  
“Now miss, we need to discuss that pretty ornament that you got there for your little girlfriend.”  
“That reminds me.” Coco tapped the man on the shoulder in order to make him instinctively turn around. It was a bad habit that she forced herself to ignore.  
Then a punch that would easily break anyone’s nose exploded from Coco’s fist to instantly drop the first man. “I don’t like shakedowns.”

 

“And so then, when I looked up from the shop Ruby was gone. I tried following the loudest part of the crowd since she usually was the loudest one but that didn’t help. Then I tried taking a short-cut to get to the main gate was when those three hooligans showed up. I just can’t believe that they couldn’t recognize me. Weiss Schnee. Miss, Weiss Schnee. Unbelievable.”  
Coco just stayed quiet as Weiss took out all her pent up aggression from the events on her. It wasn’t her place to say staying in the same spot would have solved all her problems, but Weiss didn’t seem like one who wanted critiques.  
She would have been plenty happy just knocking the three down and walking off, but it seemed the white haired dog wanted company to the marketplace. So staying quiet seemed like the best option to avoid necessary chatter, but it seemed to be useless since this women could talk for the both of them.  
“Not to seem rude or anything, but do you know of any places I could eat?” Deciding to at least get a sentence in, she brought up the option of a free meal.  
“The marketplace has plenty of places to eat. I’m sure that one of the shops would suit your appetite.” Weiss proudly said ignoring the hint.  
I guess she’s useless in her own sense.  
“Ruby! There you are!” Weiss stormed off stomping each step that kicked up a little sand with each pace. “I’ve been looking for you. And just where do you think you’ve been?”  
The two women, or what looked like high schoolers in love, reconvened in front of a jewelry shop. The two made chit chat which left Coco alone with no way of getting that free meal. She was happy to help, so she left the two to make up for lost time. But that still didn’t solve the matter of a job and food.  
With no money to spend, looking at the people in a shop who were dining on bread and meat only made her hungry. After her stomach growled loud enough to make her nervous, Coco came to the realization of her problem.  
“If I don’t find a job soon, I’m gonna starve.”  
As if to ease her pain, something that of a revelation struck her head. It was so simple that she was blind not see it earlier. And after removing the revelation that struck her head and blinded her, she could read what it had to say.  
Knights Wanted. Report to castle for work.  
“Guess I’m not gonna starve after all!”  
The best opportunities hit you when you least expect it.


	2. Crosshares Kingdom

Today was much too hot for anyone from the west. The sun wouldn’t have shown for several days under normal weather and it would have be strange for it to be out more than a couple hours.  
As Coco walked to the castle, she looked up at the sky as she thought that. The sun seemed unusually large, but it was simply ordinary in these conditions.  
No, it wouldn’t be quite right to think of these conditions as ordinary.  
The coat she wore did provide a good amount of protections from the sun; but even relatively light even for winter coats, the heat still invaded her body causing several instances of nausea and headaches.  
Under normal circumstances, Coco would lavish in the idea of going to a foreign country to see their wares and clothing. In a time like that, she would have been moved on how different the lifestyle is to that of the west. But those emotions were deeply hidden in Coco, reflected by the sand in her boots. With no money to spend, she had to make do with the time she stopped to empty them out.  
This left glares of surrounding citizens to look at the absurdity of her situation before wandering off. She learned early on not be bothered by the gazes of others, unless of course she was putting on a show of some sorts. But the repeated cycling of doing this left her to feel a little annoyed than just from the inconvenience of emptying a boot filled with sand.  
It was at this point were Coco began to feel curious how the locals of this region were able to walk about in a sandy place like this, and what she found almost had her bursting out in laughter.  
Their feet was warped in a cloth that only covered the middle, exposing the skin on their heels and the wiggling of their toes. That would have been next to suicide in the mountainous regions. It would have resulted in the same thing Coco is doing with the replacement of sand in boots to rocks under skin.  
Feeling a bit chipper this time around, she decided to carry her boots the rest of the way instead of having to stop every thirty paces.

 

The castle felt more like a house than that of a military stronghold. It did have the appropriate guards standing around with a full set of equipment, but Coco saw that they were standing by leisurely only to straighten up when someone walked by. Lax for security but did its job.  
Still though, if people wanted to get in, you could decorate the entire yard with soldiers and they’d still find a way in. But making it easy doesn’t help.  
It was obvious with a look that this was vastly different from the residential area behind her.  
Those streets had very old, but sturdy and long lasting houses that were different from the clothed hooded roofs of the common citizen. It was clear that this area belonged to those of a royal standpoint, but it remained silent if not for the activity in the district over. Coco had noted on the amount of houses that were left vacant but there were still a few houses that were still very much alive.  
It was hard to see Ruby having an actual reason to be in any of those houses, but Weiss in the madder made things clear. Very clear.  
But other than the newly wedded couple along side Weiss’s house, despite their excellent security, it was unusually quiet even for the space they were in.  
This left her wondering on the amount of vacant houses even when they were taking in every refugee they could find. It seemed off knowing they weren’t making anything out of this, but it was a nice thing to do for its people and felt unnatural to be the only gloomy person in this city.  
“Halt! State your business with the castle.” A emerald haired gatekeeper who was heavily tanned stopped Coco as she was about to walk past the main gates. Her red eyes contrasted with the sun which appeared almost villainess for anyone who hated it.  
“Does the castle not take walk-in knights?” Coco handed her the flyer.  
“I’m sorry. But unfortunately only those with the proper paperwork can enter. We need to maintain an appropriate tone in the presence of the King and would be insulting to let anyone by without being assured they are here for a reason. So if I may see proof of your employment, I’d be happy to let you in.”  
“Oh yeah, sure.” Coco retrieved the documents from her coat as she began to flip through them. Knowing going back to the gates would be a hassle, she also knew there was some sort of fee in becoming a registered knight.  
But I guess that is one form on income. By having everyone need a working permit of some sort, it makes a great source of revenue and could be easily taxed by the city. I guess my best chance is to talk to that Yang lady again and see- wait. What is this?  
In her hand was a red outlined document that stood out from the ones that proved your citizenship and right to buy a house. Still not believing all the perks she got just by entering this city, she handed the gate guard to what she believed to be the knight papers.  
“Ah, I see.” The gate guard exclaimed partially not believing it herself. “Well it looks like you’re all good to go. A little advice though. People keep getting lost in the castle and we have to pull them out before we arrest them.”  
“Hmm, can I bother you with directions then?”  
“Of course! My name's Emerald and I’ll be happy to lend you a hand.”  
Way to trusting this country is.  
“So as soon as you walk in there are several places you can go.” Emerald began while hand gesturing the movements to make. “On the left and right side are two door ways that lead you down a hall. There are also doorways on each side to the far end of the room. But the staircase in the middle is the important one. If you go up the stairs and take a left, you’ll be lead to a wall with two different doors. Which door you take doesn’t matter because they both lead you down the same hall.”  
“Wouldn’t it be easier to say head down the hall?”  
“Just listen.” Emerald said beginning her instructions again. “While there may be a hall on the left, it’s important to go through the second hall on your left.”  
“Are you saying that up the stairs on the left is a hall or that there is a second hall down the first one.”  
“You got it. That will lead you to a library in which you need to take the third book off the second row. It’s some information pamphlets and it would be nice to be filled in.”  
“Second from the top or bottom? Because I know some bookshelves that have more than two rows; so it’ll be nice to clarify.”  
“The entire row is filled with the same pamphlets but it’s nice to keep in organized. So head down from the library and you’ll be back on the second floor.”  
“Wait, I thought I was on the second floor.”  
“Wrong. The library would be on the fourth floor so you’d need to be on the third floor to get to it.”  
“How’d I wind up on the third floor!? And how does a staircase from the second floor lead to one on the fourth?!”  
“Like I said, take a left and you’ll be at a staircase. Got up and take a right.”  
“You didn't even tell me to go right your first time explaining it and I thought the staircase was in the first room!”  
“First off, never go left. Going left for any reason in the castle is a horrible idea. That is the personal residents of the King and there could be many things to say about a knight wandering around his room. So if you don’t know where you are, don’t go left. Right?”  
She then stood there as if to receive an actual answer to her response.  
Coco responded in agreement as Emerald began her direction going through the courtyard and a swimming pool.  
Looking up at the mansion not bothering to continue listening to Emerald, Coco began to think of the logic of having a swimming pool in the middle of a desert. “I’m sorry, but I think I should try to finding it on my own.” Interrupting Emeralds pointless talk of directions.  
“Fair enough. Just don’t be in any important place or I’ll be forced to arrest you for trespassing.” She waved as Coco steadily approached the castle doors thinking of a way not to get lost.  
Looking back at Emerald, she gave her the ‘go ahead’ and smiled.  
Okay, the only thing that was consistent throughout her stories was going up a staircase. As long as I find one, there should be some indication of where the knights are reporting for work at and… THERE IS NO STAIRCASE!  
Coco mentally screamed to find the first room into the castle was another room that lead to the main one.  
This is gonna to be my entire day isn't it.

In the bad news, Coco had once again found herself lost in the midst of contradicting directions and going through doors. In the brighter news, she found where the bathroom was. Completed with a window and a mirror to show her how screwed she was.  
Thinking whether or not climbing out the window would be the best option, she decided best to not. That would make it too obvious of looking like an intruder.  
Coco scolded herself on the obscenity of getting lost twice in one day. Never before has she thought that getting herself lost was even possible for a hunter. She had spent days hunting in the mountains region paying little attention where she was to instead look at where the prey was going. Never once had she felt lost, but she had twice in this city. It was insulting to say the least, but it was a problem she had to work through.  
The castle she was vastly different then the one she grew up in. With walls very thin and fragile, it seemed that you could punch a hole through one and grab something from behind. Off setting from the grey stone fortress she had once called her home, this one was full of life and appealed for home sensory to that of defence. Clothes decorated the wall to vibrate the many different amount of materials they had to offer. It would seem that it was there less for the purpose of eye pleasing guests, but that of a reference material. It felt out of place, but slowly continuing down the hall, the more it appeared to be natural.  
There she had noticed a hall that bathed in beautifully with the yellow sun that shone through the windows. Similar to the light of a fragmented moon scaling across a windy lake.  
The windows were the cause of this being made out of stained glass with many different designs and patterns that seemed off putting even for something minor as a window. It was not for the sake of keeping a safely regulated window, but for the sun to wave at the ground in marvelous colors that swayed in the heat. It was mesmerizing not in the sense where one wanted to stop and stare, but one where you needed to see more.  
Coco gave into her suggestion making her way down the hall of lights to be stopped by a single door down the hall. Compared to the other doors she had seen, this was was different to the common doors that led into bathrooms or closets. It was made out of wood.  
Coco loomed out the window to see the desert sand in the distance making it habitual for those with only extreme resistance to heat. She thought of any nearby places that could offer wood to the desert and couldn’t think of one.  
Did they haul it from anywhere? None of the refugees had an abundance of wood from what I could tell and it doesn’t seem reasonable to have to travel this far for a delivery.  
Although she did not have that much knowledge with interior design, the door itself was awfully eye-catching. And the fact that they managed to place it here was impressive of itself.  
Coco took a moment to think of the probability for the meeting to be behind this door. It was led here by a light show from the sun and the wooden door could help show their wealth.  
Being confident with her decision, Coco opened the door to peer inside. Even if it wasn’t the correct door, she was sure there was a similar one on the other side.

It was clear from the beginning that this wasn’t the meeting room, but Coco wasn’t in the least disappointed to what she found. She was cut-off mid thought not from opening the door, but her eyes had been drawn to the small beauty that was laying in a middle of the bed reading a book.  
She wasn’t dressed like the common outfits of citizens, even the extravagant one’s she had noticed from the royals. She was wearing a red, well tailored, desert gown with golden straps to highlight her features. Arm bracers lay firmly around her biceps with a white cloth reaching down to her wrist before it strapped on again. Along her chest, right above her breasts, was a collar of gold that wrapped around her neck ending slightly behind it. Rabbit ears stood proudly over her head which were both pierced with expensive jewelry that was worth more than any man could possible make.  
This girl was a faunus. And a cute one at that.  
Coco had seen many maidens in her life that were either to proper or flat out unbearable. But the longer she stared, the more the sight grasped her heart. She was beautiful.  
Coco would have applauded her beauty if it were under any other circumstances. However, she was laying idly in her room while Coco was only here to be recruited as a knight. She couldn’t stay in the presence of this goddess for too long, yet her body refused to move.  
“Oh, hello.” The rabbit fanus looked up with a smile that Coco permanently stained in the back of her mind. “Why don't you take a seat and- oh my! What happened to your shoes?”  
Coco looked down at her bare feet to see it covered with sand. She hadn’t realized that the boots were dropped somewhere and couldn’t think of a place where they could be at. So instead of worrying about some boots, she lifted up her foot to shake off the sand that lingered in her toes.  
“Don’t you worry about it.” The faunus said in a accent that was native to her bloodline. “I always have an extra pair of shoes to lend to anyone that may need them.”  
The fanus ran around her bedroom frantically finding the appropriate shoes for Coco. And after finding brown braced shoes with a white cloth that matched perfectly with the coat she was wearing, she got down and started putting them on.  
Coco saw this faunes as the princess and couldn’t bring herself to disagree. But with her being to princess and putting shoes on her, it was hard to ask the princess to stop. “Y-you don’t have to do that your highness. I’m sure I can find a way to-” She was interrupted by a pouty face that looked up at her to shut her up.  
God she’s cute.  
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She smiled with a slight tilt in her head before going back to her bed. She patted the bed a little indicating that Coco should find a comfortable spot next to her.  
It would have been easy to decline an offer to lay in someone’s bed, but Coco was powerless in the face of beauty she never knew that was needed in her life. Reluctant to take a seat and slowly to not look eager, she sat calmly next to the princess trying to force herself to relax.  
The princess didn’t make this easy by getting close as possible to her; brushing her leg against Coco’s as she prompted the book so they both could easily read its contents.  
“So, do you have a name that matches your pretty face?” The princess said too distracted to pick off where she left off to notice Coco’s blush.  
“M-my name is Coco.”  
“So tell me Sir Coco, are you finding Jili enjoyable?” The princess glimpsed at Coco while flipping through pages.  
I am now. “No. Wait, I mean yes! What I mean is-” Coco calmed down before giving the only question she might actually get out. “The thing that’s been bothering me the most is the lax behavior this country has when it comes to the refugees. I don’t see gain from accepting every person that comes here looking for shelter when they have the potential to cause harm. Your highness.” Coco said nearly forgetting the honorific.  
“Well that’s easy.” The princess smiled finally regaining her spot in the book. “It’s simply the right thing to do. We might not be gaining income or profits from the people who come by, but it's for the betterment of people everywhere and the least we can do is help. The kingdom has always been open to new people. After the west rampage,” she pointed to a section in the book. “Many people were displaced. My parents gave them shelter and continue to do the same for others. That’s why you came here; right Sir Coco.”  
“Y-yes your highness.” Coco held back the temptation to squeal like a certain maiden in love.  
These weren’t people who were going along to build a name or set an example. It was just basic needs of everyone that they felt it was there need to help wherever they can. And giving people a place to sleep then they were being hunted down will show that this life still has some upsides to it.  
“Why thank you Sir Coco, and you don’t have to call me highness. Velvet will do just fine.”  
Coco reminded herself not to start saying her thoughts out loud around Velvet, or something might slip out. “What’s that you’re reading?” Quickly wanting to change the subject before she announced her love.  
“It’s not what I’m reading, it’s what I’m writing.” Velvet showed Coco the contents of the book that appeared to be records of the days events.  
It would have been nice to think that this girl was an excellent scholar that took it upon herself to write down historical events. Well, being able to read and write are traits of a excellent scholar, but what Coco was reading wasn’t anything as noble as that. It felt more similar to a diary than a history book.  
She wasn’t positive at first, but when Velvet written down the line, “I had a lovely conversation with Sir Coco, a knight who had survived the West Rampage who sought refuge here.” Coco winced at herself knowing that she had just barged into a girls room, a princess’s at that, and is currently reading today's entry in her diary. It felt wrong for anyone to be reading this even if the author was okay with it, but she was happy with the fact that she left a good impression somehow.  
“And with that,” Velvet set the book open on the corner of the bed to let the ink dry. “How about we get you to that meeting. Needing all the knights we can get right now, I’m sure my father would love to meet you.”  
The two of them walked out of Velvet’s room together as they made their way down the hall with Velvet gripping on Coco’s sleeve. She had noticed that Velvet was rubbing it as if checking out the quality of the material.  
Coco thought how nice it would be if Velvet was a skilled tailor and could make her a pair of sunglasses.  
It was at this moment that she realized the severity of having the princess drag you down the hall. And she quickly knew that the place they were going was not something as calming as a meeting room.  
I’ve made a terrible mistake. Coco thought as Velvet dragged her down the hall slowly making their way directly to the throne room.


	3. Crosshares Kingdom

Coco was too nervous as she entered the throne room. It was clear by a glance that she was afraid, proven by her shivering body. Inside was Coco, two knights who guarded the entrance, eight knights who had their own appearance and quirks standing in two lines on both ends of the room, a guard who stood directly beside the throne, and the owner, possibly to the entire establishment and kingdom. Oddly enough, the throne that would be for the queen remained empty.  
Coco was about to introduce herself before the king interrupted her.  
“Knight, are you keeping something from me and my daughter?”  
After making a visually confused look on her face, Coco began to think of any way that offended the king or his lovely daughter. The king decided to repeat the question with the added detail of barging into her room while she was writing in her diary.  
More aware of the situation, Coco knew what the king was now talking about and was more in a panic. The king saw this, and got rapidly more angry as he watched a cowering knight at his feet.  
“So you knew?”  
“Yes your highness. About that-”  
“You fool!” The king made no attempt to censor his anger that startled just about every person in the room. “We gave you entry into Jili as well as property to sleep in. We gave you a working permit as well as authority to act like a knight.” A guard handed a clipboard to him to read off. “Coco Adel, just because we have given you these privileges doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. So, what is the meaning of this!?”  
“That’s”  
The king's blonde hair frizzed up like electricity not allowing Coco to answer.  
Coco would love to put the blame on Emerald who gave her such the obscene amount of directions. But as she thought, Coco knew that she was partly to blame. These mistakes were simply due to her own ignorance and neglect on the subject. There are always hints and messages for everything. And perhaps if she wasn't too worried about the sand in her shoes, she might have been able to avoid this encounter.  
It was then that a back door from the room opened as a older looking Velvet walked in and took her place next to the king, sitting in the once empty throne. Coco couldn’t tell what they were talking about since they were obviously trying to keep quiet about something.  
There, the kings mood shifted from an angry emperor to a worried father. “Adel, are you aware of the arranged marriage between Velvet and the prince of Giramwen?”  
“Ye-no! What I mean to say is, I am familiar with the kingdom of Giramwen but I have no recalling of the marriage.”  
Giramwen? I haven’t been there in a long time. Though I guess being permanently banned doesn’t help. Coco recalled her time in Giramwen but couldn’t help but feel she was forgetting something. Something along the lines with faunes or the fact on why she refused to go back. It felt important, but the very fact she forgot must mean it wasn’t.  
“See, there is no need to worry Peter.” The queen turned to the king. “She simply got lost in the castle. I’ve lived here all my life and I still get lost to this day.”  
“April, it’s just that I’m worried about our daughter. You saw how that Cardin fellow acted. I just don’t see any woman being happy with a man of that character.”  
“Well that’s why we’re going to reject!” April shouted proudly. “And besides, we have a wonderful knight who would be happy to protect our daughter.” The two of them turned to Coco who forgot that she should be looking scared. She stood proudly, with strength. She knew that she could personally protect Velvet from an entire army, and she made an attempt on how she stood to make it clear for the two of them that she as up for the task.  
Peter didn’t look nearly as confident as April, but with a minute of sizing Coco up, he seemed to accept it; as reluctant as possible.

Having completed the recruitment process with Peter, Coco headed outside. She wiped her head from the build up of sweat because she didn’t want to look too nervous in front of Velvet.  
However, that itself was not the problem. That was because- the prince of Giramwen who had an arranged marriage with Velvet- had escalated Coco’s situation too much and too fast.  
Coco’s personal knights who would have accompanied her were no longer here. Those two alone could have easily fought off an entire army, even if it was just for a bit. But these situations were completely off and Coco felt that she couldn’t do anything significant as making a slave driven country a pacifist. But seeing a beautiful princess waiting for her, she began to think that it could work out in the end.  
She looked up the sun to wipe off any more sweat. But in truth, Coco had not sweated at all; she only felt she had.  
“Coco! How’d the meeting go? Did you impress my father?”  
According to the king's orders, the prince was due to show today to make final adjustments. The marriage was supposed to happen in Giramwen with the real purpose of this trip to take Velvet hostage. It seemed even the king didn’t want to feel that today was the last time he might ever see his daughter. And it was up for all the knights to make sure Velvet remained in Jili, and that included Coco.  
“Oh, you must not have eaten since you arrived. Come, eat with me.”  
Velvet sat on a stone bench as she began to unpack the lunch she had brought with her. A familiar face, Ruby, stood behind her to guard as she kept a finger in her mouth to resist the temptation of food. With much effort and struggle, Ruby prevented herself from asking as Velvet managed to pop open the box with a cute hmph sound as the two women began to eat.  
“You must forgive my father. Being the king and all, he has to act like one. He may seem intimidating now, but I hope in time we can look back on this a laugh.”  
Coco hadn’t said a word about the conversation she had with the king and was going to keep quiet as she formulated a plan. She didn’t know if Velvet knew what was happening today, or if she did, she was mighty good at staying calm.  
“So, what was your life like before coming to Jili?” Velvet asked in a evasive manner knowing not to bring up a touchy subject that would lead to a hard felt emotion. But still curious, she couldn’t help but ask.  
Seeing this, Coco decided not to mention anything about Valiric or her place in the kingdom and instead decided to talk about a hobby of hers. “I hunt a lot, if that’s what you mean.”  
“Oh! What kind of animals did you find?” Ruby deciding to be part of the conversation lend her head in between the two.  
“Nothing too interesting to say the least. Bears, deer, goats and the sort. The occasional mountain lion and rarely a snow leopard.  
“Wait! You’ve hunted a mountain lion before?!” Ruby visually excited about the idea kept up her continues act of a child instead of a guard. “The only lion that I’ve ever seen is the one Blake rides; but she won’t let me near it since it keeps trying to adopt me.”  
“Well, I never went out to hunt specifically a mountain lion. And when I can help it I choose to leave them alone.” Coco explained the characteristics of a mountain lion saying that their fur is too scratchy to make a good pelt nor do they have enough meat to make a meal; so the only real good thing about hunting them is to not deal with it later. “On that note, is it normal for people to ride predatory animals?”  
“You can help settle a bet then. Is a Griffin a bird or a mammal?” Ruby snorted at the question which left Velvet and Coco thinking.


	4. Crosshares Kingdom

Six mounted horses were steadily crossing over the desert. Their horses were surprisingly fast despite sand crumbling at their feet forcing them to make rigours paths up and down the slopes. It was sloppy. Messy; and it would appear that they were not taking in the consideration of tipping and trapping themselves but to only focus on the destination in front of them.   
It had been awhile since any knight of Jili had seen a horse, and if it wasn’t for the occasion, they might have gone out to examine it.  
Coco too was watching the sand kick up behind the mounted horses in awe. Coming from one of the coldest places around, she never had the luxury of owning an animal of any kind for it to live a happy life.  
Yang looked at Coco who was much more focused on the idea of people riding animals then the people themselves. So while all eyes were on the horses, different thoughts arose from the knights the closer they got.  
“Something on your mind?” Yang turned to Coco their posts on top of a watch tower.  
“It’s just that.” Coco stopped to peer at the men who looked a little overconfident. “Why did they decide to ride horses in a desert?”  
Yang thought about it, turned, and gave the same amount of confusion Coco did. As the closer the horses got, the worse their case got. “What about you? How did you arrive at Jili?”  
“I walked.” Coco remarked crossing her arms at the kicked up sandstorm.  
“Wait! You walked all the way here? You didn’t have a horse or something to help?”  
“Can’t say I’ve been around an animal long enough to make it a pet. And any animal I find myself on the back of usually ends with a knife.”  
The two of them stood there in silence as the sandstorm came to a stop well beyond the intended area of drop offs. Everyone was unusually calm despite the danger that could arise from this meeting.  
“What is the meaning of this?” A man rearing his glorified horse questioned as he was stopped by a closed gate.  
Coco thought he sounded familiar and wanted to get a closer look; but peering over the watchtower walls where wind was a little more vibrant than that of the bottom had her stumbling back to wipe sand out of her eyes.  
“You okay there?” Yang asked worried as Coco regained her balance.  
She waved indicating not to worry about her while she headed down the tower. Coco had a distinct feeling that they met somewhere before.

Velvet was waiting in front of the gate as she watched the men steadily get off their horses. She too looked at the horses in disbelief knowing that most animals would suffer in this kind of heat, including the lost animal that wandered into her home.  
It would have been common for her to snicker on this thought, but if she messed up now, there wouldn’t be a chance to go back home.  
A man walked forward putting in effort to walk like a king. He strode across the sand like any king would, if they were here for war.  
Velvet recognized this man as the Prince of Giramwen, Cardin the Bedswerver. She didn’t actually knew what that meant, but it was a suggestion from Yang to say that to him.   
She gave a quick glance to the top of the watch tower to see her giving a small thumbs up. Ruby stood next to Velvet also not knowing her sisters colorful vocabulary and decided it was best to just shrug it off. But it was enough to calm Velvet’s nerves, even by a little.  
“Well hello princess. I guess an animal like you an almost look decent, sometimes.” Cardin did his best to give a wicked smile which left Ruby clicking her tongue. She knew it wasn’t her place to correct his behavior and wasn’t going to do something as dastardly like assaulting him.  
“H-hello Cardin. You’re early?!” Velvet panicked a bit squeaking her voice.  
“It looks like you didn’t make any improvements to your selection of guards; even the red pipsqueak is still here.” Looking around, the spotted several unfamiliar faces as well as a knight walking in his direction. As if to intimidate him, he didn’t bother with a second glance and scoffed at the idea. “You even started taking taking new knights? Do you honestly believe any amount of knights that animals hire can ever hope to stop me?”  
The knight it question stood up to the Prince who was to busy looking at the outer edge of watchtowers to notice her walking up. She looked at him top to bottom sizing him up. And after taking the appropriate stance, cracked her knuckles.  
There was a brief sense of silence that followed a loud wham sounding more like a piece of broken steel. A GAHH! was shortly followed as Cardin laid withering on the ground in pain. Yet, no eyes were on the prince as he lay in and out of consciences, but all were focused on the knight who took the bold approach on the Prince.   
They were warned ahead of time by Yang to keep and eye on her, so the only people who weren’t in on it were Velvet and Ruby. Now of course, there was no way in telling that an approach like that was going to be that subtle, but every guard was promised an interesting show to watch.

The King and Queen who was told to be onlookers of the event stood in shock as Coco walked in front of Velvet acting like a shield.  
“Did she just punch the prince of Giramwen? I take back what I said.” Peter watched in disbelief as Coco started yelling at Cardin. He was too far away to know what she was saying, but her actions alone made it fully clear what she was screaming about.  
“See,” April smiled watching with Peter. “I told you Velvet is in good hands.

“I don’t care who you are or whatever sorry excuse of a Prince you are; no one in their right mind talks to people like that. Especially the princess.”  
Cardin was quick to regain his footing after he heard himself being belittled. He would string the knight up of who ever harmed his reputation and make an example of what happens when you fight with Giramwen.  
That what was suppose to happen.  
But instead, he stood in more disbelief as the two of them looked at the familiarity in each others eyes. And Coco got angrier and angrier and Cardin began to face the truth of the situation he was in.  
“You again!?” Coco practically growled the statement as the memories of Giramwen, faunes, and a rebellion she staged came flooding back to her. A particular memory reminded her of the relationship she had with the bedswerver. “Am I going to have to break your nose a second time before you realize your place as a king?”  
“Break his nose!” Yang hollered from her post egging Coco on.  
Cardin backed away from Coco hiding behind his guards. But the guards knowing before the prince, got on their horses and left.   
Cardin was forced to leave angrily as he struggled to catched up the the men he had brought with him. Coco waved him off telling him not to come back as she was pleased with herself. She had thought about the best way to tell the prince off several times and depending on how he acted was the way she was going to handle it. But Coco found the best way to deal with an entitled boor of a person was a flick to the forehead; or a shattered rib cage, one or the other. Coco knew that this was going to cause many more problems than it did solve, but she figured that’s just how life is. So instead of worrying in the future, she decided to accept the warm embrace that Velvet wrapped around her.


	5. Crosshares Kingdom

A deer whose fur matched the color of the surrounding snow, stood in the way of a fully drawn arrow. The head gleamed off of the reflected light, and it slowly took aim, ready to end it’s life in a stroke of mercy.  
The deer sneezed as it tightly shut its eyes and as air blew out of its nostrils. Maybe if the deer had been more aware that it would never again open its eyes again it would have fled, it might lived long enough to die a natural death. It might have actually lived if it had a hunter that would show mercy to a majestic beast such as itself.  
However - arrows did not show mercy to prey.  
And as such, there could only be one outcome to this hunt. The deer would die where it stood.   
The arrow flew through the air - and there was no pain.  
Coco sighed in relief as she relaxed the bow to her side. She was happy that she could offer the deer a quick death, and relaxed once she succeeded doing so. The screams of a dying animal haunted those who caused the scream, and only psychopaths would be unfazed by the moans. Thus, even through countless years of hunting in these mountains, Coco was always satisfied with a quick hunt.  
The hunter was quick to retrieve the arrow as the deer slowly began to match the temperature of the snow around. It was completely defenceless that was clearly displayed by the lack of fear it had within.   
As though tranced by the deers gaze, Coco smiled knowing she did a swell job. The hard part was over, and all that was left was skinning and quartering.  
Her first time doing this was an insanely messy job which had blood and arteries flailing as it dyed the snow red. Even through tears and the blood that covered her, her mentors only told her how the get the job done as they watched her as a child.   
A bear was the first game she had ever killed in silence, and was directed to take a bite out of its heart in remembrance. It was a weird tradition within Valiric which made her stomach clench every time she felt she did a bad job. So without missing a step, Coco began to work beautifully on the deer.

Night was quick to fall on anyone who needed the day, and in the case of using every part of a deer, bones and all, dusk was already gone and past. This was no different than any other night of hunting that went on for weeks at a time whenever she felt the need to go out. Being the crown of Valiric was different to that of other countries who determined their heir by blood or elections. There’s solely relied on what felt right, and whoever acted like it.   
So the news of becoming a princess was news to Coco who spent more time in the woods than a fortified castle walls. She personally hated being dubbed a ‘princess’ and the other three choices of; empress, liege, and sovereign were out of the question. So in the end, her people wound up splitting it between madam and lady.  
At least they were considerate enough for that.  
Coco felt she wasn’t fit to be a ruler. From what she had seen, they had a certain aura around them that you could feel were royalty. Coco had felt something similar coming from Yatsuhashi and Fox, but to her surprise, they had both swore to be her bodyguards once she received the news. But a night like this was not the time to worry if she was doing anything as a Lady, but to instead focus on getting back to Valiric.  
The deer around these parts were strong compared to the forest breed when the snow stopped. The usual approach when hunting was a party of three for the meat, skin and bones. But going alone would have meant she would have to make three trips there and back if she didn’t feel like dragging a body across the snow. There wasn’t any worry about it being infected since the blood usually froze on the way back, and the only types of insects that could survive in these climates were snow fleas that would kill themselves in an instance if they landed on human flesh. But the long years of a hunters life ensured that although her arms looked fragile and thin, they were accustomed to carrying bears up the mountain.  
The pack she had brought with her was filled neatly to the brim with pouches of blood, skin, meat and bones to show that they were not going to waste any of it. The deer in of itself was very heavy to its brethren, but Coco hoisted it up like she always did.  
To pass the time, Coco would think about earlier hunting trips that left her hands shaking in excitement or the time when she had to call upon Yatsuhashi for a game she couldn’t bring back alone.   
As Coco thought about these stories on her way home, she heard an unusual sound coming from the mountain top ahead. The air was heavy over there, and fear slowly started to bring her to a stop.  
She seemed to pick up a sound of something burning, and after that-  
A crash?  
The sound was strange as it was like the minuscule amount of heat she had heard from a fire was amplified in the area ahead. It was unbelievable. There must be some kind of an mistake. No fire could reach its way in the cold like this. Even if lighting struck the trees it would burn itself out. But this fire felt strong, it felt alive. And whatever it was fueling off of, it was burning deeply.  
Coco had to run to the top of the mountain, because it was in the direction of her home. Casting aside her game, she could not afford to lose any more time. Forcing herself not to trip in the snow she felt was unfamiliar. In utter disbelief, Coco watched from afar as her castle was slowly being burnt to ruins.   
She could see that men and children alike were hard at work putting the flames out. But what caught Coco’s eye wasn’t their off hand coordination, but that there was infighting. Coco would have been betrayed by her country and betrayed by her friends if she had recognized the faces of the people who were tackling and seizing everyone from her kingdom. But even from miles away, Coco could tell that those were not her soldiers. They were too lean, too tender to have lived in Valiric; and the only exception to this rule was Fox.  
There were no strangers In Valiric so Coco personally knew each person who was being detained and forced to their knees. Coco watched as every person wasn’t even putting up a fight as they were brought down.   
Coco would be screaming at them for such a behavior and would normally be barking orders at them if she was there.   
But the person in charge of the orders was Yatsuhashi, so she was shocked to find that surrender was their first course of action.  
He stood still in front of the burning castle as four people were struggling to bring the 7 foot giant down to his knees. But even as more and more men were approaching, he stood proudly and stared directly at Coco.  
D-does he see me?  
Coco watched diligently as he saw him mouth a word. Priding herself in her eye sight, even Coco could see what Yatsuhashi was saying. But it could go unsaid what he was saying as he let himself be taken down.  
Irritably following orders, she knew that this was the best course of action. So picking up her bag and giving one last look to the burning fire as the castle finally crumbled to the ground, Coco did the one things she never imagined doing. She abandoned her people. She ran.  
***  
It was expecting too much to get a good night's sleep after a night like that; and the dreams had been forcing Coco awake for the past few weeks. There were too many things she didn’t know and didn’t understand.  
Who were those people who attacked Valiric and why now of all times?  
If she was there to command her army, could it have gone differently?  
And why did they chose to surrender?  
These questions kept Coco awake through the rest of the night, and a midnight stroll was the closest thing she could do to get her mind off it. It was troubling at times, but it worked nonetheless.

A small fire was lit at the entrance gate and a single solemn knight was on immigration check. She had awfully pale skin with yellow eyes that seemed like a cat.   
Coco would have liked to say something about what she was doing, looking more like the reserved type who would rather be reading a book. But she sat there on guard duty, just sitting and waiting for anything unusual to happen.  
And Coco’s situation was unusual.  
“Oh hello.” The knight said looking at Coco with a smile. She seemed to have kicked something from under the counter where she was sitting.  
“Hello, erm, Blake, is it?” Coco chose to ignore the second bump and noticed a little prop on the left side of the desk that told people was on active duty. It was Blake and a person named Penny. “What are your policies on a little exploring.”  
“Here at Jili, we offer all sorts of tour spots and attractions during the day and those at night for those who are nocturnal. With around a clock shops always being open, we can ensure that you will have a lovely time at Jili.” Blake seemed a little flustered and was surprised how enthusiastic she was despite her appearance. Blake reached under the counter and made a little ‘flicking’ sound before she handed Coco a pamphlet “If you’re having trouble reading in the dark I can-”  
“No need.” Coco rejected the offer quickly not wanting her to stand up. Coming here at night was already a bad enough idea, so Coco made do with reading it in the absence of light. “What’s this about a magic shop?”  
Regaining her train of thought, Blake began to describe that magic in general was an extremely rare trait and little people even know of its existence. But the princess, Velvet, has a keen sense when it comes to magic and didn’t feel complete without opening a shop of her own.   
“She runs her own shop? What does she sell? Magic healing items or potions of love?” Coco was half joking with one part of that statement.  
“Phht. Something a little stronger than a love potion if you know what-” This time instead of a subtle tap it sounded more like this morning when Coco shattered Cardins rib cage.  
“Velvet can pretty much make anything if you show her how. Little people know she can do magic so she usually makes custom weapons for her knights. She even made Ruby a custom battle scythe and my lion Aslan some battle armor.” Blake brought it up so casually that Coco had to review what she said a second time before she heard the lion bit.  
“Yeah, Ruby mentioned something about you owning a lion.” Coco thought it best to leave out the ‘adopting’ bit.  
“Speaking of her, mind if you do a little errand for me? Ruby meant to give something to Penny but forgot and is currently sleeping on the couch.”  
Blake moved to the side allowing Coco to see Ruby sleeping like a small child who was one thumb away from being a baby.  
“About that, when I meant exploring I didn’t mean what I can find in Jili. I’m talking about things I can find in the desert.”  
The two of them stared blankly at each other and Coco knew that this hasn’t happened before. Even Blake didn’t seem to know what to do so they both agreed to have her sign out on a guest log and just sign back in when she gets done exploring.  
Coco made sure to thank them both and went on her midnight exploration through the desert.  
“I can’t believe you Yang!” She heard Blake scream when she was turned away and out of ear shot for a normal person. “It was hard enough to keep Ruby asleep, but I can't keep having you do this when I’m helping someone out.”  
Coco plugged her ears.

 

One thing about the desert night is that the temperatures drop to almost freezing. The air was dry and the moon was clear. Not a single cloud blocked the stars giving people who had very little familiarity with the night a chance to see. But in the eyes of what Coco would like to consider an esteemed hunter, the moon still somehow blinded her in the sand.  
This is getting ridiculous. I must be the only person who can somehow get blinded in the dark.  
But a certain figure glittered from the distanced that had sharper edges than the passing sand. It looked man-made. It looked like a temple. It kind of looked like-   
“Is that Velvet’s house?” Coco looked closer to see a very similar design to that of their castle just sitting there in the desert. Upon closer inspection, it was smaller, much more glass and felt like a storage house.  
Coco peered to the faint glow of Jili in the distance to make sure she didn’t loop around. But the fire was faintly there, and here was just a random storage house that must have been revealed by the kicked up sand.   
Curious and confused, but more curious, Coco walked around the exterior to make out all noticeable entrances but could only find one.   
It was a staircase that lead down to what should have been the dark abyss. But a light shone from the bottom and faint whispers echoed up the stairs becoming incoherent. Elaborated, but illegible.  
Coco thought of the odds of them being friendly and knew the chances were slim. Being in the middle of a desert at the bottom of an abandoned temple of sorts with dimly lit light that could only be shown from the bottom was indeed quite illusive. She herself didn’t help the case being a lone explorer having nothing to light her path.   
She might have thought other people saw her as a robber in Jail since a good amount of them were shocked that she wasn’t carrying a torch. But Coco got popular very quickly this morning so everyone just smiled and waved her off.  
Deciding not to take chances but not going overboard, she poured her last bottle of deer blood on the top most step.  
There wasn’t anything special about the deer she killed, but blood in general won’t come off unless you clean it off. It didn’t give off too much of a smell, but you’ll be able to smell it if your looking for it. That’s why Coco needed to be very careful every time she was skinning the animals. White fur in general was near impossible to clean and it will always be tinted red after words.  
Hoping the same will apply, she hopped down the first step and analyzed her little trap before heading down.  
If it turns out ot be nothing, then I’ll warn them on the way up. And if it isn't.  
Coco wasn’t in the mood to be jumping and dancing about, but fights rarely allowed anyone to be ready for them. So as silently as possible, she began to make her way down the sandstone steps.

“What are you doing! We’re not supposed to stay down here this long.” A woman's voice complained to an apparent comrade.  
“Relax, I'm almost done. The first and last locks are always the hardest. Not knowing where to start and no knowing when it ends. Come on Cider, you should know this.”  
“Stop talking so loud, what if the guards hear you?” The girl named Cinder growled at the man for his remark.  
To make sure Coco wasn’t heard, she took very careful steps downwards and was still about half way there. She could see the room ahead was brightly lit with artificial light but could see in the room except for the few feet in front of her.  
Coco rolled her eyes when she heard this conversation taking into the account that these are third rate robbers. With just seven sentences, Coco already learned that they were doing questionable behavior for guards, they’ve been at this for awhile, and they know what their doing in a sense. And one of them already babbled somebody's name. Cinder was it.  
“Neo. Are you keeping watch up the stairs.”  
There it is again. You can’t be spouting other people's names when-  
Did he say up the stairs?  
This put Coco in a panic as her cover was about to be blown. All she could do is watch as she saw an arm shrug their shoulders and a head peeked out from the side.  
A girl with brown and pink hair peered from the side of the stairs looking up in Coco’s direction. But whether she wasn’t paying attention or she couldn't see her, Neo gave a thumbs up and the other two went back to bickering.  
“I told you Cinder, only a lunatic would be walking around the desert at night.” The man said going back to his work.  
Coco couldn’t tell if that was directed at her or themselves, but she wasn’t going to be sticking around to find out. She began to think what she was going to say. Something along the lines of violating the law or something like that. And when she finally reached the bottom, she said the first thing on her mind.  
“Wait, are you holding fire?”   
Coco pointed out that a girl in a red dress was standing there holding a ball of fire to give light. It was only for a split second, but the look on the two of their faces were absolutely hysterical.  
“Mercury!” Cinder shouted at the man as he pulled something out of the pedestal he was working on. It looked important, so Coco was going to have to snag it from them before they leave.  
Cinder, who had been their only source of light, extinguished her flame leaving the room in complete darkness.   
Maybe as a hunter or Coco’s elongated time spent in the mountains, she could see clearly the people in the room so much so that it would be called night vision. She couldn’t see the color of things, but could easily see the outlines of the people who slowly crept along the edges of the room.  
But first.  
Coco rolled forward to avoid the knife that was charging directly at her throat. It would have hit its mark if Coco wasn’t staring directly at it.   
Neo looked confused and continued to stabbed the air in front of her trying to find something to hit. It made a hard thud than the usual tearing of flash as she slashed the wall in front of her.  
Hearing this, Cinder blink a fire a little bit giving Neo enough time to mark Coco’s location before turning it back off. But with a simple side step-  
Bwaaah! Mercury screamed as the knife nearly stabbed him in the head. “You’re target’s over there Neo! Don’t stab me.”  
Neo rolled her eyes and kicked Mercury in the leg as she began to try to attack Coco again. This time charging without the light, Neo headed in the middle of the room as Coco needed to take care of something else.  
“Neo! You’re targets over here next to me!” Mercury screamed at Neo as she ran over in his direction. Oddly enough, Mercury was the one who had to dodge as the knife was firmly planted in the wall his chest used to be at. “Cinder! Neo just tried to stab me!”  
“Will you just shut up.” Cinder said irritable trying to thick up a plan.   
Coco’s plan was already at the fourth step. All that’s left now is to not get stabbed and leave.  
“Mercury, your job is to leave and make sure you aren’t caught. We’ll handle the intruder.” Cinder’s fire shone brightly once again for a moment to have Mercury escape up the stairs leaving Coco with Cinder and Neo.  
This will be fun.

Coco went with a few rules that she had picked up sparring. There were only two of them, but she didn’t break either of them.  
No matter the gain, no matter how well you’re doing, if you have five disadvantages, stop and leave immediately. Even if you could get extraordinary gain if you win and even if you’ll lose very little if you fail. Even if you have 1,000 advantages and only have five, don't take that risk. Stick by this rule and you won’t face an unnecessary defeat.  
Coco began to tick off what she considered pros and cons of this fight. The fact that they didn’t know who she was helped and they couldn’t see her was even better. Not only that, but she could see them.   
Something that was bothering Coco is that these two felt like the better fighters. It was hard to get close to Neo without her noticing and stabbing where Coco was, and the Cinder girl could use magic and they were always troublesome to defeat. The constant blinking wasn’t helping and Coco felt she would lose if Cinder decided to get rid of subtlety and just keep the room bright. So to make things a bit more of a fair playing field, she needed to stop Cinder first.  
It wasn’t hard getting to her, but she needed to act fast before she did the blink again.   
So instead of being focused on Neo, Coco leaped towards Cinder and squatted down in front of her. It would have been funny if she laid there to see how long it took them to realize she was there, but she needed to be on her feet for the next part.  
Cinder lit and extinguished her fire again just enough to notice that Coco was right in front of her.   
“N-” was all Cinder could make out before a heavy uppercut cracked her jaws and teeth. If Coco did it right, it would rattle her brain causing short term memory loss and rarely a minor coma. She wasn’t killed anyone with that move just yet, and she held the punch back quite a bit. So even if Cinder did have a glass jaw, Coco wasn’t worried about anything life threatening.  
That was one of the reasons you aren’t supposed to talk or gloat in a fight, and Coco respected Neo for not saying a word. It was smart.  
At this point, Neo seemed to know what had happened and stopped decorating the walls. It was fun to watch a skilled fighter not trying to lunge at her with a knife, but sadly it wasn’t meant to last.  
Coco backed away from the unconscious body and allowed Neo to pick her up. Coco could have easily took Neo on now, but that would mean a risk of calling Mercury down to help. There was too much that Coco didn’t know about this group aside from there names that she couldn’t get a proper evaluation. So it was best to think they could leave in victory as long as they secured what they came here for. Thought they did anyways.  
Number 2 when it comes to fighting. Don’t fight for more than a minute.  
The next problem would handle itself so Coco wasn’t worried about having to fight them in the sand. It was a lot like snow, and a hell of a lot different at the same time. But if they got what they came here for, of course they would leave once they found their commander unconscious.   
That was a double edged sword in some cases. Having a commander is helpful and you would lay down your life for them. That was one of the reason Coco avoided killing people. Once they found their family, friend, or commander dead, they would stop at nothing to kill as many people as it took. They would lose eventually of course, blinded by grief and rage; but it was unnecessary deaths on the other side to die in a winning battle. Letting them go made Coco’s job easier on getting back to Jili, and didn’t have to dirty her hands in the process.

“Hi Blake.” Coco waved at her as she was about to leave with Yang.  
“Hi Coco. Have fun exploring?” Blake smiled as Yang yawned over her.  
“Maybe.” Coco remarked tossing the black orb she pick off of Mercury like a ball. It looked like the black pearls found in Valiric if anyone had to heart to dive. But this would be about the second biggest pearl she’s seen if it was one. But the texture and weight alone didn’t stand by it, feeling much more heavier than clam bone.  
“What’s that?” Yang asked still tired after a sleepless night.  
“Don’t know. But it felt important and looks expensive. I’m probably going to give it to Velvet and ask what it is.”  
“You’re better off with Ozpin on that one.” Blake stared intently on the black orb as if it generated malice.  
“Ozpin you say? Well, I’ll be sure to check him out. Either way, good-” Coco looked towards the sky to see if the sun was coming back up. “Morning.”  
The three of them smiled like friend towards each other as Coco headed back to her inn. FIghting was tiring in of itself, and walking hours through a desert is hard enough.  
But feeling accomplished with a days work of spoiling an evil plan and a wedding, Coco was sure she could get a good rest for her deeds.  
Jumping in her bed with the clothes she had traveled with, she laid rested until she was woken up.  
“Breakfast is ready for those who want it!” The innkeeper shouted up the stairs waking everyone up and down the block.  
“Why?!” Coco moaned defeated as her good one second nap came to a tragic end.


	6. Crosshares Kingdom

Coco had to stop several times to take a quick break from walking if she didn’t want to fall asleep in the next step. She felt it was different then the times she was sleep deprived in a snowy mountain of death compared to an unfamiliar area.  
The desert heat still strained her eyes bad enough that she had to squint when she was in the general facility of the sun. It was hard, but she needed to to meet this Ozpin before heading back to Velvet. She was promised a meal when she got there and didn’t want to be rude like sleeping in on a meal.   
And bringing anything that people are after to the princess is just asking for her to get kidnapped. Trusting no person better than herself, Coco thought it best to keep the black sphere on her until she found a better way to handle it. So bringing it to Ozpin felt like the best approach.   
His tent was in the market square within the others like jewelry or standard weapon shop. It wasn’t hard to spot being that the tents ranged from colors of white, tan or orange while his was specified with a vibrant purple that heavily stood out in the street.   
Coco looked around to see if anyone else felt that this tent was off but they just walked past without even a glance  
Odd.  
She felt it was odd to have a vastly different tent to that of the others but felt it was stranger that no one even batted an eye. It was confusing, but she had to deal with it.  
“Come in, come in my child. Come in.” A voice within the tent rang as the entrance became visible like an opening to the mouth. It was breathing, and Coco was half sure it would spit her out if she tried to enter recklessly. So carefully as possible, she watched her steps as the surrounding desert transformed from the sun beating down on natures natural glitter to that of a purple starry sky above the clouds.  
It reminded Coco of the nights in Valiric where aurora lights would give them their own light show of the night. It didn’t happen too often, but often enough where they found when it was the brightest and celebrated the day with silence. No parties, no events. You just wandered around the mountains until you found a spot to yourself, stare at the sky in silence till morning came.  
Ozpin’s tent was almost a replica of that feeling and it was hard for Coco to tell the difference. The only thing that was missing were the temperatures that would freeze your lungs if you breathed in the air too quickly.  
“Hmm. I just made myself sad.” Coco not bothering if there was another person in the room.  
“Now is not the time to be reminiscing on the past. Drink this and we can get started.” A robed hand reached out from the darkness that even Coco couldn’t really see in, and handed her a clay cup with a bubbling green liquid.  
It wasn’t boiling, but it looked sticky and every time a bubble popped it smelt like rotten deer tongue. Sadly a familiar smell and this probably isn’t the worst things she’s going to drink in her life.  
“Try to drink all of it but don’t force yourself. It takes some time for people to go through much smaller of a cup when-”  
Bwaaah! “Why do you make people drink this!” Coco threw the empty cup at Ozpin forcing him to catch it if he didn’t want it to break.  
He looked almost impressed looking down at the empty cup while Coco tried to get the bitter taste out of her mouth. “Do you know why you’re here?”  
“Of course I know why I’m here. I came here to ask you about this black orb.” Coco withdrew the orb from a sewn in pocket in her coat making sure he could see it but not letting go of it.  
There, she watched Ozpin’s movements closely for anything that looked odd. If the cane he had was used as support, decoration or a weapon. Whether he walked in a circle, back and forth or lunged at her. Either way, Coco still didn’t know enough about Ozpin, Cinder, or this black orb. She felt the action was a bit to trusting and would have to catch herself not to make the same mistake later.  
“I’m surprised you can hold that. Tell me, what do you feel coming from the orb?” He asked sitting down in a very worn but very used chair as he rested both hands on the top of his cane.  
“Not sure?” Coco put the orb up to the light to see if anything was hiding in the middle. It was too black to see through but it was polished to it reflected light easily.  
“Do you not feel… worried? Has fear or anxiety not have posed you upon you any ill effects. Do you not feel, angry coming from it. Or do you feel something else?”  
Coco was visually confused with his way of questioning. She couldn’t say she felt anything resembling malice from the orb or even anything in particular. It just felt like a big pearl if you don’t count a situation strange that a group of thieves would go out in the middle of the night to search for an overgrown black pearl in a temple under the desert. “Can’t say I’ve felt anything other than it being a rock. You tend not to feel a lot of bloodlust when you've been chased down by a group of bears.” Happy with that answer, she put the orb back into her cloak pocket with further questions remaining. “So, you know what it was doing under a desert?”  
“Sadly, there is only so much I can tell when it is in the possession of another.” Ozpin taking the hint she wasn’t going to hand it over so willingly. “I can however go to the place where it resided and tell you the purpose of the temple that was holding it.”  
Did Coco mention to him where she found it apart from the desert?  
He knows something.  
Still too unsure about his motives, he was recommended by Blake; and it seemed Yang trusted her.   
So trusting him enough for the time being is the least Coco could have done, at supervising him in the temple could reveal more things about Ozpin and that Cinder girl.  
“Sure, I’ll help you out.” Coco making up her mind with the current footing.  
“That would be perfect. Though I am afraid we don't have much time together so let us make haste with our current bearing.”  
***  
It took Coco a couple hours to find the spot. She had noticed early on the sand had quickly buried the temple with ease and it was hard to find if she didn’t know general direction going. Hard to find yourself out of the mountains if you didn’t know which was north.  
Coco scoffed at her thoughts when she stood directly above the temple with no effective way of getting down.  
“Well, we’re here.” Coco said seriously while maintaining sarcasm. Coco was half expecting to have to explain to Ozpin where the temple was, but he seemed just as happy Coco was. “What gives? You got a plan with that cane of yours?”  
“This cane is just that, a cane. No special gestures or magic will not make it any more than what it is. It had its own use for its own time; so in this case, I’ll be using my own tricks.” Ozpin did his best to remain neutral in the affair, but Coco could see a hint of joy that squeezed its way out of a smile.  
It was then when the wind turned and the sand begin to rise. Like a sandstorm over head and they were in the eye, the sand at their feet began to fall as it progressed to the sky to stir and fling about  
“You can make wind?” Coco had to cover her eyes almost all the way to keep her eyes in check. It would have been unusual to see the sand that buried the temple disappear to show what was hidden, but Coco forced herself to think this was normal after she saw a women using a ball of fire as a light.  
“While it may look like my own, this power is not mine.” Ozpin stated finishing up. “I just, moved it around from somewhere else.” He looked content with his worked that revealed the temple.  
Coco didn’t get the best look at the temple at the dark, but it was clear that this was not built for a desert.  
It was like a rectangle that shot into the ground much more than the entrance revealed. The colors ranged between teal, turquoise and lime looking much or accurate if it were found under the ocean floor. Small paths were ingrained in the side of the walls that took sudden turns with no particular direction at all. Eventually, the patterns would dive down in it’s own ocean of colors making it more curious to go down.  
“Ah-ha.” Ozpin exclaimed muttering to himself. He did seem more accustomed to the temple then Coco was, as she was still admiring the temple Ozpin unhesitantly headed down in.  
“Looks familiar?” Coco catching on to Ozpin’s sudden change of behavior.  
“I believe that you are needed elsewhere Ms Adel. Rest assured, I will inform you all of my findings.”  
Coco leaned in from the top of the stairs to imitate a hard of hearing. She thought there would be some better excuse of secrecy instead of just telling her to go away.  
But it was a sound of a horn that made Coco change her mind. While not as strong and hearty of a war horn, it still left its mark on Jili resonating miles across towards the temple.  
Coco had expected some retaliation from Cardin after what happened, but she hadn’t expected it the next day. It was much too quick to gather a mass amount of troops so quickly even if they were stationed somewhere near by. It felt much too fast, too sudden. But Coco ran on head with no hints of hesitations. Coco wouldn’t allow the people of Jili to experience what happened to the West, to Valiric. She couldn’t let that happen to Velvet.  
***  
“Okay guys, upon popular request, we have conducted this audit to discuss about the gorilla with the shattered chest. To begin, I would like to be the first one to say what is on everyone's minds. It’s about time.”   
Sun was in the throne room talking to all major employers of Jili. It included Ruby, Blake, Yang, and Nora as advisors of some sort when it came to carrying out a battle. He also needed to have some people who built a name for themselves to avoid any problems. That included Weiss, Ren, Jaune and Pyrrha. They didn’t actually need Jaune here, but they needed Pyrrha for this and she wouldn’t come unless he did. It was weird how she had retired quickly after getting married dropping out as a knight, but the king respected her wishes to live a happy life with Jaune. That leaves an opening for battle tactics and they still need to find someone who fits the role.  
The king, queen, and princess were sitting in their own thrones allowing Sun to speak. He for one wasn’t much for motivational speeches, but he get what he wants across just for people to hear him out. He was a personal bodyguard for Velvet, after much debate with the king, and he was confident in a plan to avoid deaths in the future battle of Velvet remaining in Jili. When it comes down to it, it was either surrender or this fight.  
“Coco Adel was the first one who took action against Cardin’s behavior when we were all itching to do it ourselves. Yet when the time came to express our feelings, Coco was the only one who took any form of action. While that action did lead us to this meeting, we still have Velvet to thank for it.” Sun was taking glimpses off a paper that had been handed to him by Blake. It explained what had happened, including Coco Adel and how she shattered Cardin’s chest along with a speech he had prepared if he doesn’t know what to say. Sun loved to improvise when it came to his talks, but it helped to have something to read off of if he got to side tracked and didn’t know what to say.  
Velvet had blushed and turned her head away after Sun’s praise for Coco, and even had offered to feed her tonight. It was doubtful to have a private dinner with her considering the king specifically wanted to talk to her about this and might end up a feast for the kingdom instead of a fancy dinner.   
Sun has still yet to meet Coco, but he considers anyone a friend if they fight to protect Velvet.  
“In Jili, we had promised those who took refuge from the horrors of war or the West Rampage a place where they never have to draw a sword again. Nora, can I interest you with the task to in getting out soldiers ready for the fight with a little game called, Queen of the Castle?”  
“Aye aye, Captain!” Nora shouted giving Sun a salute before sitting back down.   
“Bumblebee, can I intrust that you settle on a team to watch out for attacks and make practice drills for the knights?” Blake closed her eyes in embarrassment upon Sun’s request while Yang gave a thumbs up to the request along with the appropriate use of their couple name.  
With every serious speech he had given along the lines of food reserves and possible battles, he alway made sure to make everyone take their focus off the battle for a bit. So far, he got Yang, Blake, Nora, and Velvet. Ruby would take care of herself for anything that lasted longer than ten minutes. She was reliable when she needed to be, it just made everyone worried that she’s focused on a butterfly instead of this audit.   
“Ren, this task would usually fall to Blake, but your job is to scout ahead and get a head count of their Cardin’s forces. I’m not asking you to go in and infiltrate them stealing battle plans or documents, just get an estimate of the soldiers who can fight and what we have to worry about.”  
“Of course.” Ren bowed deeply as he walked out. It seemed he knew that the faster he got the more we’ll be ready.  
Sun still couldn’t figure out what he found in Nora. Was her prowess on the battlefield or that she could eat her weight in a sitting when she’s full.   
Speaking of appetite.  
“Ruby!” Sun made sure to shout to rattle her a bit. “Go to the Oasis and check on our food resources. I also have to ask you to talk to Penny about how much food can she help grow without putting too much strain on herself.”  
“Sure thing! We’ll be combat ready in no time.” She raised an arm in the air vividly more excited about her job than the others, including Nora.  
“One thing, don’t get stopped at the entrance again. We don’t need you to get trapped in the lion’s den again.” After Sun said this, Ruby’s happiness came close to a slow chuckle. In ashament and embarrassment.  
“There are several things I still need to go over with you, my king. But for now, everyone who has gotten a job can head out.” Sun watched after the knights and those who followed them headed out. That left him alone with the noble’s of this group along with the king, queen, and princess. Pyrrha had remained silent throughout this entire ordeal, so he was curious what someone from an ex-strategy background had to say about this. But Sun was sure if he had messed up somewhere she would have pointed it out and made her suggestions. It was good if she said something and good when she said nothing. The only real reason why we should be worried is if she’s worried. And Pyrrha remained calm next to her husband looking down thinking.   
But now the real battle began. How much is this going to cost?  
***  
Coco was out of breath when she was almost at Jili. It took an hour to run back here full sprint and she only wished she arrived sooner. There were already a number of soldiers drenched in a red liquid, but she could tell the battle was still going on. And she would definitely help.  
“Hit the deck!” A voice rang at the green projectiles that were coming from the top of the castle walls. Coco was shocked that they made it this far so quickly despite being under a incompetent ruler.   
Coco dodged one of the green spheres that lunged at her as two more were steadily approaching. She broke the second one mid air which drenched the area in red liquid. “Is this a watermelon?” Coco looked at her hand like an anomaly as she caught the other one without looking too hard at it.   
“Hey, lay down. You’re dead.” A body who was previously dead looked up from the ground. Coco had so many questions what was going on now but could only comply at the sudden request.   
“What exactly is going on here?” Coco laid flat on her stomach getting to eye level with the guard who was playing dead.  
“Battle practice. Right now were training how to take a hit from a beast with a cannon arm.”  
“I’m Queen of the Castle! I’m Queen of the Castle!” A voice rang out from the top of the walls as Coco watched the dastardly sight of soldiers being pummeled by watermelons trying to avoid death. There were a few she could make out who were holding their own. Some splattered against people's heads as others frantically tried to dodge.  
“And that’s game!” A voice rang out far beyond the castle walls as the dead bodies began to rise from their fallen graves. They marched on like zombies towards the outskirts of the castle where it was decorated in weapons, shields and watermelon splats.  
“This I’ve got to see.” Coco brushing off her sense of worry with a jog towards the training grounds.   
“The winner is Blue Team this time. While Nora did make the most kills towards the Blue Team, they was successfully able to capture both points despite having watermelons thrown at them.” A blonde faunus was scratching his head with his tail seeming to be confused about the battle results.  
The captains for blue team read Ruby and Weiss as red had Blake and Yang. There was only two names under the header, Juggernaut, that had Nora and Penny.  
“Weiss is out of commission after taking a devastating blow to the stomach, so any volunteers for a new blue captain.” He looked up at the crowd and singled Coco out of the lot. “Perfect, and can I have a name.” He recognized that he didn’t know Coco and was making a new slate on the bulletin board. The crowd she had been in all instinctively took a step back indirectly having her step forward.   
Clever tactic.  
“Hi Coco.” Velvet waved from under a tent in the shade.   
There would have been nothing more than to take a seat next to the goddess and fall asleep on her shoulder, but Coco felt she might be out of practice after last nights fight and felt she needed to catch up.  
“Oh, so you’re Coco Adel. Tell me, how was breaking Cardin’s stomach?” The faunus smiled writing Coco’s name on a wooden palate and placing it under the blue team's captain. “I’m Sun by the way.” Sun stuck his hand out for a shake  
“Well Sun, I only wished a aimed a little lower.” Coco gasped not his hand firmly, but a little behind his wrist instead.  
“Weird handshake.”  
“I get that a lot. But I find it’s more memorable that way and if your falling off a cliff, that’s where you’re supposed to grab them. So, what’s the game?” Coco smiled  
“Formally known as Juggernaut, we are playing a few games of Queen of the Castle. The rules are simple but it's a fun game. There are two points in which you are supposed to capture which is resulted by having a 3/4th majority over the enemy player. After holding down both points for a total ten minutes, regardless if you lose the point and gain it back, the game ends. It’s simple and easy to follow.”  
“Then what’s up with captains and juggernauts?”  
“That’s a little variation we have. Penny provides watermelons while you have to take it over to the queen, Nora, to have them thrown at the enemy. So basically, Penny gives you watermelons regardless of what team or how well your doing in the game. If a Captain gives Nora a watermelon, then waits ten seconds then starts counting down. The first captain who tags her gets watermelons thrown at their enemies. But if no one tags her, she goes neutral and starts throwing watermelons at random.” There was a moan from the crowd who was covered if sticky red watermelon juices that painted their armor instead of the usual garbs they would wear.  
“Sounds fun. I was afraid I might be getting a little rusty, so this will be great practice.” Coco smiled counting off the troops in her command.  
“That’s the hope of it.” Sun smiled happy he could meet the person who Velvet fancied.  
“After this, I might to a course on battle plans for the troops. You know, correct footing, battle formations and the sorts.”  
Sun looked shocked after hearing this. “Are you familiar with training troops?” Seeming like Coco was the solution to a problem of his.  
“I used to have my own squad back in the day. Hunting in the darkness despite not having an night vision. They were damn well at their job and couldn’t ask for anything better. I wonder what they are up to now?”  
Coco chose those words carefully trying not to reveal anything to personal about herself. All she needed to let off was the fact that she could train Jili’s troops when the battle arose and they would be just fine. Coco was confident that as long as she lead them, nothing would be able to stop them.  
Is she needs to, Coco herself will stop the upcoming army. She won’t allow people seeking a safe refuge to succumb to the feeling of lose. Not to the people of Jili, and certainly not anywhere else from here on out. If the people of Jili are gracious enough to lend her any army, she will lead the charge.  
“Well men! Let’s get this game going!” Coco switching to her commanding voice she kept only for the battlefield. It riled up her soldiers and gave them the spirit to fight.

***

“Like I said, stick to a four man squad! Don’t trust only yourselves and rely on your teammates.” Coco was shouting orders while holding her own against several soldiers wanting to stealing the point. “If your still up, then so is your squad. Spread out as a single unit to avoid being singled out by the watermelons but progress steadily. And Ruby, how’s our supplies looking?!”  
“I’m working on it!” Ruby shouted back having a bit trouble getting the watermelons.  
“I saw you paired up with Weiss.” Penny looked coldly at Ruby refusing to give any watermelons to her until she finished interrogating her.  
“Like I said, that was all just part of the game. And look, Coco took Weiss’s spot and isn’t cradling me.” They both looked at Coco who was simultaneously flipping around to avoid being hit alongside pushing the Red Team out of the capture point. They had already lost one point and if this one fell, Blue Team would start getting ahead.  
“Then would you say that your relationship with Weiss is just that. A game?” Penny reached out with a watermelon in her hand.  
“It’s hard to choose between the two of you.” Penny pulled back after hearing Ruby. “Can we not discuss this while we’re in the middle of battle?” Ruby forcing to duck avoiding a watermelon where her head would have been.  
“I disagree. Having thoughts shared out on the battlefield are true and undistracted.” Penny said putting the watermelon back into her stockpile.  
“She’s right you know. Bonds formed on the battlefield tend to last longer than death.” Coco overhearing their quarrel decided to make things interesting.  
“Not helping!” Ruby turned away to have Penny grab her face and bring it close to hers.   
“Ruby, would you die for me?” There faces were almost touching when Penny asked this. It was a move that always got the true answer out of anybody. Even as indecisive and carefree someone might be like Ruby.  
“No.” Ruby said almost breaking Penny’s heart. “I’d live for you.”  
The two of them were locked into an embrace as Penny and Ruby began to feel more of each other. “Go Ruby, fight with your life for me, and come back safely.”  
“What I mean by that. I’d live for Weiss too but-”  
“Too late!” Coco shouted snatching a watermelon and Ruby away before either one was broken on the inside.   
“Bring back my girlfriend unharmed.” Penny shouted back handing watermelons out selectively to her team only.  
“I can’t promise she’ll make it out without a scratch.” Coco instigating the problem further. She had to dodge a little to avoid being struck from behind, but it was well worth it to see someone defeated before the battle even started.   
“As the queen of the castle, my first order is…” Nora exclaimed out loud knowing what would this lead to.  
Coco eyed Blake standing next to Nora giving a peace sign. It was time to get serious. This was a game so she didn’t mind losing anything for the fun of it, but she was worried about that Cinder and Neo girls who she might have to fight someday.   
With Yang charging at Coco and Ruby and Nora throwing watermelons at them, it would be no better time to test the strength of her endurance. “Blue Team! We are going on the offence. They have captured the Queen gaining the advantage. Everyone buckle up and give them hell. And if I catch anyone playing dead like I did the last game, you won’t be playing afterwords.” Coco summoned the devil she kept in her. She knew when she got the voice right when it overloaded their motor functions and forced them back up.  
“Run! Red team, let’s go!” Nora shouted winding up a watermelon for a shot against blue team’s captains.  
“Whoa!” Ruby was pushed back by Coco to avoid getting hit by the watermelons or Yang. Almost losing her balance, she watched the fight go down between Yang and Coco. It felt even Nora wanted to watch when she slowed down her throws.  
Coco launched down on Yang’s knee with an overhand punch. The goal wasn’t to land the hit, but to set her up for the follow up.   
With Yang’s head slightly below Coco’s chin, it was a perfect time for an axe kick to the shoulder. Yang would have gone down to the ground if it had landed.  
That what was supposed to happen if a watermelon hadn’t staggered her mid kick.   
Backing out of Coco’s reach, Yang readied her stance as a boxer and charged.   
Coco could see she was going for the same moved she tried to pull on her, but it only worked once on an actual battlefield.   
Following up Yang’s charge, Coco roundhoused forcing her to block with both hands to avoid a broken nose and dropping like a sack. People are naturally afraid of anything coming at their face, and it was a habit that Coco loved to exploit.

“Hey princess, what are you even doing here? I get if your worried about the people who are risking their lives for you, but you seemed to focused on something else.” Sun, who stood next to Velvet under the tarp, asked her this.  
“Oh nothing.” Velvet sighed in a way that Sun knew that she was in love, which was unusual for someone as shy as her.  
Following her line of sight, Sun made contact with the person she had been staring at this entire time who just threw off her coat to reveal a build that would put his to shame. It was muscular and strong enough that it could look like it could lift a full grown bear. But it wasn’t bulky enough to unable her to perform acrobatics. It was the perfect balance between tone and bulk. “Ohhh, so that’s why you came to watch today… Interesting.” Wrapping her arm around Velvet to prevent her from running away, Sun shouted. “Hey Coco, can you do some more flexing please?”  
“Sun wait!!” Velvet squealed with a red line that went ear to ear.

“Good runs guys!” Nora shouted happy with the results of a draw. The fight would have lasted much longer if red team hadn’t taken the two points when they did.  
“What is he talking about?” Coco heard the commotion coming from the tarp as Sun’s name was being screamed in embarrassment.  
“Do it.” Yang winked at Coco.  
“I would just ignore the both of them.” Blake too annoyed to bother continuing the trend.  
Coco could feel malice coming from behind her, it wasn’t as strong as getting hunting down by a horde of bears, but it was close.  
A moan came from under Coco’s foot as it would seem that she had landed on top of Ruby. Penny quickly snatched up the broken child and left without a word.  
“Quick, somebody stop her!” Blake yelled noticing Coco’s confusion about the sudden abduction.  
She was long out of sight when Blake said this and Coco couldn’t do anything to help. “Why, what gives.”  
“She’s taking her to the Oasis where we keep our pets.” Blake now much more annoyed knowing that they have to retrieve her eventually. “You see, Penny is a forest golem which helps with the agriculture here. She’s the reason why we can eat so well despite being in the middle of the desert.”  
This made Coco come to the realization why people would only pay for the meats from the stalls and the fact they could use watermelons for such unorthodox methods. I would have been nice to have a forest golem in Valiric, but it would probably freeze to death before it made it halfway up the first mountain  
“Yeah,” Yang hoped in on the conversation. “She can communicate with animals and convinced most of our mounts that their a wedded couple. Most of them doesn't include Weiss’s griffon resulting Ruby almost being torn apart when out mounts fight her’s. Would you like to be the one to tell Weiss about Ruby?”  
“I think all pass on that storm. Speaking of agriculture, who else is hungry?”  
Everyone, and Coco meant everyone’s stomach growled at the mention of food. Not sure if people were just traumatized of being food thrown at them, they all went their separate ways in search for their own food.  
Coco was promised a meal at the castle, and thought it was a good time to cash that it before she gets too tired again.


	7. Crosshares Kingdom

Stomachs growled in the dining hall, and Coco took a bite out of the food in front of her.  
It was a plate full of green and red vegetables with variety of sauces and ornaments; decorating it like some sort of culture festival. Eyes were on Coco, including knights, chefs, and guests. But Velvets eyes were particularly alarming as they watched every movement and express Coco made while eating.  
In Valiric, temperatures were much below the freezing point of any fruits or vegetables to grow. With the exception of tree bark, green bacon they liked to call it, she was used to an all meat diet. That said, she had to force herself not to gag out of reflex.  
Coco had steeled herself before hand and was still hesitant to eat each bite. She wasn’t going to act like a child who refuses to eat their food because she didn’t like it, even if Ruby and Nora were the first two to complain about the menu. She was going to eat it, and she was going to enjoy Velvet’s company. That was that.  
“Hmm. You don’t have to force yourself.” Velvet looked worried as her knight in shining armor was having trouble eating the food that she had offered. But with much persistence and patience, Coco managed to swallow her next bite of food to ease Velvet’s worries.  
“I spent and entire week with nothing but water. I’m not that picky enough of an eater to decline a meal.” Coco was right in the sense that she usually isn’t the pickiest of eaters, and spending two weeks, not one, really threw her regard of bad tasting food out the window. However, she had declined a meal from someone of equal standing or maybe higher than that of Velvet during her time in Lonther. She offered the excuse that she couldn’t because it was her nature not to expect anything in return of favors. Her stomach was empty, but really didn’t want to stay too long for people to start remembering her.  
In this case, she had taken a partial residence with the inn owner just outside the main gate. It was the furthest away from the castle, but it was the first one to be alarmed of an outside attack. So not wanting to stay long wasn’t an option and the little show from before definitely had her face memorized. Rumors were already starting to accumulate where Cardin was dragging Velvet by the ears and Coco was the only one to take action. They all shared their differences, but the one thing they all agreed upon was the fact that Cardin wounded up with a broken rib cage.  
Today was her second day in Jili, and Coco already stood out far more than she had planned. It almost was a joke to her how things ended up. She still got a free meal out of it, and a job that she still didn’t know how much she got paid. And during those two days, she was hired as a knight, protected the princess from being a political piece, stopped a couple of thieves from doing who knows what, and might get offered up a position to train soldiers in maneuvering.  
It felt rushed the way she was doing things, but it was much too slow than she would have hoped for. By this time, Coco had wanted to at least know what happened to her people; or at least make contact with Fox or Yatsu. With nowhere else to turn, she was heavily debating to ask if the people if Jili would want to help her find more information regarding the West Rampage.  
Unlike her to hold things off, Coco felt it was too inappropriate now considering they were going to have a war against Giramwen. It was best to hold off for a little while, letting things die down.  
But I don’t know if waiting a little while is going to help.  
Coco was thinking that if she waited too long, it would lead to the death of her people if they weren’t killed already. It was hard for her to stay calm as she was, even if it was just for the show.  
She was tired, weak, and hungry. But the plate of food in front of her was going to help with two of those three things.  
Coco made up her mind to enjoy the rowdy laughter of cheers and the food that would be flung at each other when Velvet wasn’t looking. These were a strange group of people she was going to be staying with; but with enough time, she might even consider them family.  
***

Ren was alone in the cover of the night as he stood prowling at the forces of Giramwen. He was expecting in the least that they would take this battle of there’s a little seriously; but like his expectations he had with Nora, shattered the longer he was around.  
They were drinking, laughing, and made no signs of being weary of spies. He would have thought it easy to just walk in and they would hand it over if he just asked. They were a sad excuse of soldiers, even if he they had the best toys to back it up.  
He wasn’t worried about the forces of Giramwen at all. No, he was worried and scared about a different outcome.  
Off to the side, far from the crowd of drinks and cheers, were hundreds of wooden cages dimly lit by a faint light. In there, were the men you would expect to find at war. They were strong and hearty, seemingly that the wooden cage was made of twigs and would crumble if they stared too long at it. There were faunus mixed in with the cages who were frightened of the upcoming battle.  
He knew at a glance that they were slaves going to fight in this battle, and would love nothing more to flee from battle. He was surprised that they were as calm as they were, that might have been due to the fact that they had them far away from Cardin’s forces and they found comfort in each other.  
This raised a lot of problems for Ren knowing that Velvet wanted to stay peaceful throughout this entire battle and didn’t want anyone to get hurt badly.  
The problem didn’t rise because they were under prepared. It came from not wanting to kill anyone.  
Observing further, he noticed that one cage door was just open. This cage was apart from the wooden one’s he had seen, as this one seemed specialty crafted with heavy steel and metal. And yet, the two people who were in the cage remained seated on the ground with their back leaning against the bars. One was much more hulking than the others that were similar to him. Everyone else felt like children compared to him, even if he was sitting in an open cage.  
The other one in particular had caught Ren’s attention because he seemed to have caught his.  
He had burnt orange hair and was leaning on the exit of the cage hinges. And without even looking at Ren, he pointed towards him and told Ren to come to him.  
No normal person would have been able to notice Ren, who felt was an adept when it came to stealth, but nothing about these two felt normal.  
Not wanting them to alert others, he slowly made his way to them.  
The faunus in the cages seemed surprised as some of them stood up and ringed their hands against the bars. It was the soldiers who kept them from making any noise and sat them back down on the dirt. How weird was it that these people got along with the faunus so easily? He guessed that was to be expected since they were all prisoners of war and made no further thought of it.  
“You here to kill us or here to help us.” The man sitting down asked still meditating in place.  
This took Ren a second to think that if they were to go to battle, they might eventually having to kill each other. But he didn’t come here to kill them, he came here to observe. “Here to help. Anything you need.”  
“I think we’re fine.” The orange haired man said giving Ren a quick glimpse. His eyes were clouded and felt dead as it hadn’t bothered looking directly at the dim lit fire that illuminated their small cage. His eyes were that of a dead fish, losing all life and purpose.  
Ren felt that he hadn’t lost his meaning to live, and wanted to confirm. “Are- are you blind?” He wasn’t too sure his he should be walking in such a dangerous territory.  
“Born with it.” He said almost as a set response obviously getting asked that a lot. “Names Fox. The beast of a man you see sitting down is Yatsuhashi.” He brought his arm out to shake Ren’s hand. Ren obliged with the gesture, even if the handshake was a bit different than he was used to. Instead of grasping the palm and giving it a heavy shake, Fox went further than the palm and grasped his wrist. After being satisfied, Fox let go with a smile and began talking.  
“You from that desert city just up ahead?”  
Ren felt that a day of running in the sand didn’t count as just up ahead, but not other villages were close enough for him to be familiar with. “From Jili, yes.”  
“Hey Yatsu, do you know if she got kicked out Jili?” Fox asked with Ren knowing that there must be context to that sentence to understand it.  
“As far as I’m aware, she only got banned from Zenith and Giramwen. But maybe Lonther now since they went to have an alliance with them.” Yatsu easing his meditative posture into a formal sitting.  
What Yatsu said had bothered Ren just a bit. Not that whoever they were talking about got banned from two kingdoms, but the last part of what he said.  
“Wait, Lonther allied with Giramwen?” They both nodded at Ren’s question as he stood in awe.  
Great, was he the one who was going to tell Pyrrha? He felt that he could tell someone to relay the message, she;s going to be heartbroken that her family had allied with tyrants.  
“You think that what was happening with Jili then?” Ren asked as Fox turned away to peer on the lit camp of drinkers.  
“Look around. You tell me why they wanted to be ‘allies’ with the Kingdom of Faunus.”  
Ren peered into the cages to see heavily wounded faunus. Some were better off than others, seeing how some could stand and others were curled in a fetal position. These people hadn’t seen the faunus like people the way Jili did, and instead used them as fodder for their own troops to stay unharmed. The soldiers who followed these two seemed to be unharmed and were caring for the faunes’ wounds.  
“You might want to get going.” Fox said pushing Ren away from his door to close the cage. “And tell your troops not to lay a hand on the faunus. You figure something out so we don’t end this battle in a genocide.” With that, Fox pushed Ren away for him to run back to Jili.  
He had obtained some valuable information about the state of their soldiers. Even if they had 10,000 troops, those who were fighting were not.  
“The battle will be in about two days during the early hours. Be ready to fight, not to kill.”  
***

Coco had once again failed to get any sleep for this day. She had spent all of the morning talking with her goddess before the time passed enough for the raising of the sun. Her eyes strained much more than she had with the sand, but the combination of the two was almost unbearable.  
She would have gone straight to sleep right away at the inn if they hadn’t called her to the training grounds. She was going to train the troops how to understand maneuvering and adapting to sudden changes in behavior. She wasn’t feeling for any mock battle today, so if she does get the opportunity to teach, she knew it was going to be a slow day that involve a lot of self studying.  
When training her own troops, she first taught them how to whistle like a bird. It was odd considering they were going in the heat of battle, but it helped when it came to giving commands. Plus, she loved it when people couldn’t whistle and it was a symphony of incoherent rambling. And soon, she will drill all the battle toons in their heads where they can’t forget it even if they tried.  
Coco chuckled hysterically fumbling over like a drunkard towards the castle. Between hunting for rations and trying not to die in the cold, she would have to guess that whistling was the only thing in Valiric that nobody had anything against. For the older ones who hadn’t quite freeze to death, it still gave them something to do with their lives.  
“Coco, glad you could make it.” Sun was waiting for her by the training ground entrance. He too was one of the people who spent all of last night dining and failed to get any sleep. HIs yawn was loud and exaggerated and Coco thought that going into this training was going to be the only way for her to stay awake.  
“Happy to help. So, anything in particular you would like me to teach them?” Coco had brought a book with her she had carried throughout her journey. It recorded anything she had found useful and effective during her time hunting. She wasn’t one who likes writing things down in a book because it allowed her to forget. This was another reason she didn’t like paintings of people or places. WIth a written recording of it, it allowed people to forget because they can afford it. Since they have it written down, they don’t need to remember it because it will do it for them. A book is more useful as a fire starter than it is to write in Valiric.  
Though, it does come with so useful notes that she could just have people read as she slept. She was sure that these people weren't completely useless in that...sense.  
Coco drifted off into sleep for a second to walk it off like it was a stretch. She was going too days without sleep. She had done longer before, but she wasn’t moving and hunting around as much requiring more energy. But if she made it through today, she was planning on sleep throughout the entirety of the next few days.  
“Sorry to ask a new comer for help. The job would usually go to Pyrrha, but she retired from the battlefield to look after her husband.” Sun scratched his head with subtle hints of embarrassment. They both looked at the soldiers that Coco was going to be training for the day when that name clicked to her.  
“Nikos, right?” Coco was positive that was her name, and was at least a little familiar with her situation.  
“Oh, you’re friends with Pyrrha?” That got Sun’s attention.  
“Little less than friends than to say that she’s a little famous in the west.”  
“Really, I should tell Pyrrha this.”  
“I wouldn’t do that.” Coco quickly said before he made any rash decisions. “She’s known as the bastard child of Lonther last I heard.”  
“Really?” He had mixed emotions of stunned, shocked, and disappointment.  
“You said she retired after she got married. I’m assuming that her husband was…” Coco began snapping her fingers trying to remember the name. It occurred to her that she might have never heard the name because her family was trying to keep it a secret.  
Coco chose the word commoner and Sun nodded rapidly at this. She didn’t want to offend the ex-princess of Lonther by saying peasant, but that is what her husband was. The only people who have 8 children are kings trying to get a male successor and the poor who can’t afford a job. Lonther itself was a fine kingdom, having what you’d expect from a normal one that is. Isn’t made out of sand or snow, and doesn’t have a tyrant ruler. The classical kingdom of pruned knights and armor with no quirks of their own. But their ideology was much more different than that of Valiric’s even though it shared common themes with the world. It was said to admit, but Valiric may be the only kingdom that elects their leaders the way they do.  
“It doesn’t madder.” Coco cut herself off before she disrespected Pyrrha more than she already needed. She was sure that she already heard everything the world had to offer, and was living a happy life in Jili. “Let’s see what these troops of yours have to offer.” They both smiled choosing to ignore their gossip.

***

“Whistle. It’s just a whistle!” Coco was beginning to grow more and more frustrated at these people. Not only could like four people here whistle, more than half of them couldn’t even make a sound. The worse one of them was Ruby.  
“I’m trying to!” She cried knowing she was going to be the next person singled out. “I just don’t know where to put my tongue.”  
“There are several things you can do with your voice that doesn't even involve your tongue. In this case, make an ‘S’ sound and play with your lips till even the smallest bit of sound comes out!”  
Ruby began to spit out hums as the blood vessel on Coco’s forehead might just pop open out of her head.  
“It’s no use teaching her. I've been trying to get her to snap her fingers.” Weiss was one of the people who already knew how to whistle along with Penny, Yang, and Sun. She had given them the book she brought while she played catch-up on the two most incompetent people here.  
“And Nora, I don’t even know what you are doing. Am I going to have to show you lot how to do it again.” Sun began to panic a little not wanting her to demonstrate again. It was a whistle she practically made for the faunus. A drawback is that they panic at the sound and start saying things like ‘awp’ as they try to gain conscious again.  
“I can show Ruby.” Both Weiss and Penny said at the same time. They glared at each other and were just about ready to go into a cat fight if Yang hadn’t calmed them.  
Coco felt it must be tiring for Ruby having to deal with those two, or that just might be Coco’s lack of sleep catching up to her.  
It was looking pretty bad.  
“Like Coco said,” Sun shouted at the troops. “This will help you communicate longer distances than shouting. If you don’t know how, you can just blow on the tip of a pine cone.” A thud came behind him but he chose to ignore it. The screams that came after, not so much. “What happened?!” Sun might have been more scared than the screaming women pointing at Coco who was face deep in sand.  
“Coco just passed out. Is she sick, is she dying!” Ruby began to run around in panic forcing Yang to stop her.  
“That would make sense.” Penny said calmly as a yellow bird landed on her shoulder. “She hasn’t slept for two days.” Penny was looking at the bird as if they were communicating with each other. She followed it with an “ah, I see” and “must be rough”  
“What are we going to do now?!” Sun was more depressed than anyone else here seeing as their day of training face planted into the sand. He probably shouldn't leave her here, but couldn’t either.  
“I can take her.” A volunteer behind him sounded like she was more telling him than asking. He didn’t even want to look at this mess that fell before him and tried not to look at Coco being dragged away. This was just perfect.

***

Velvet was in the market square before the events of her day occurred. She was making some runs to specialty shops where she met Blake finishing up her shift. She looked a little tired, but was happy to help Velvet search for a gift for Coco.  
“What kind of gift are you looking for?” Blake asked masking her yawn with a stretch.”  
“I don’t know yet. Something she likes hopefully.” Velvet wanted to have a second opinion on this, but it seemed that Blake was as clueless at gift giving as Velvet was. “Your dating Yang. What does Yang usually give you.”  
“Well, Yang gives me more personal gifts so to say.” Blake stopped walking after she said this. She was worried that she said to much towards the innocence of Velvet, but she just smiled with her hands behind her back. “You’ll get it when your older.” Blake sighed in relief happy that Velvet didn’t catch that.  
“What’s that supposed to mean.” Velvet pointed puffing her cheeks and mumbling quietly to let only Blake here. “I’m at least a year older than you.”  
So the morning went on in a variety of shops, some having fancy jewelry while others were more hand crafted. Blake had to stop some owners from saying too much on what to do if she gives her this alone at night, but most dared not to be too chummy with the princess. They browsed and shopped. Made a little small talk to pass the time.  
“So, what do you think of Coco?” Velvet asked looking at her feet. She must have been worried about it much more than anyone else was.  
“If I would have to say one thing about the Cardin ordeal, that was expected of her.” Blake looked content with that answer as Velvet looked more and more confused. “Did you know that Coco and Cardin met before?” Blake began to clarify.  
“I knew something along the lines after what she said, but I don’t know the whole story.”  
“Did you know I was there the first time Coco met Cardin?”  
“Really now. Is that when you were living in…” Velvet wasn’t so sure if she should bring up such a touchy subject about living in Giramwen. It was nice for people, but hell for faunus.  
“She’s actually the reason Ruby, Yang and I are here.”  
“Wait, she helped you get out?!” Velvet squealed with a bit of jealousy in her voice. She calmed down and asked her what happened.  
“Well, you know that the three of us grew up in Giramwen, right?” Velvet nodded as Blake continued. “I don’t know why she came, but Coco visited Girawmen on a whim of some sort. This was the time of Cardin’s coronation where he was going to be named the next heir to the throne after he got married.”  
“You think that’s why-”  
“Definitely.” Blake said without hesitation getting a little serious. “Pyrrha married Juane and was no longer a princess at this time. And Lonther already had their next heir take the throne so that wouldn’t have worked. Nuwara would have gone to war if they receive such an insult and would use them as an example for the rest of the kingdoms. The problem with Zenith is that they don’t have a princess and you’d probably be in debt before you made it in. Valiric would freeze anyone who made it up there, and I heard they were an isolated country. Karvel is, well…”  
“Karvel.” Velvet finished Blake’s train of thought.  
“A pain yes. And Baca is more of a island resort than a kingdom. So Jili, like it or not, is the only place ready for a political arrangement.”  
“Well, I get why he wanted to marry, but how does Coco get involved?”  
“I’m getting to that. So, pretty much all faunus knows what it’s like to be in Giramwen.” Velvet nodded profusely in agreement. “Well, I met Yang who promised to get me out of there. So, we were planning on leaving at the time when Cardin’s was going to become the heir. Distracted and the sorts. What we didn’t know, that he wanted to make an example of all the faunus on that day by killing half off us.”  
“That’s horrible. Why would anyone think to do such a thing?” It seemed that Velvet was about to cry knowing that she was going to marry such a man.  
Blake calmed her down saying it didn’t end like that and she didn’t get taken away by Cardin. “Needless to say, they were looking for us.” Blake continued. “So after Yang and Ruby put up much of a fight, about a hundred faunus were were on their knees prepared to be made an example for a political campaign.  
“Just… I need to know. How many people died?”  
“None.” Blake said proudly letting Velvet calm down. “When everyone was trapped, pinned and cornered, Coco cared not of what was going to happen towards her, walked up, and punched Cardin in the nose.”  
“She actually did that?” Velvet pressing Blake to see if she was exaggerating.  
“Without a moment's hesitation. And when he tried to fight back, she did it again.”  
“What about the guards? What did they do?”  
“I didn’t get a good look, but Yang swears that she caught them laughing at Cardin having his nose broken.” Blake smiled at Velvet knowing they were a perfect match together.  
“That does it!” Velvet stood proudly with her ears standing high. “I’m going to give Coco the perfect give to thank her on the behalf of Jili and all faunus.”  
Blake did like the idea of that. She had tried to thank Coco in the past but she left too quickly for anyone to give her thanks. Yang let her become a knight immediately after coming here saying that Coco wouldn’t accept a gift for doing the right thing. But if it came from Velvet, she might actually take it.  
“I see Yang give you gifts all the time Blake. I’ll get something from the same store that Yang shops at for you. She said when I found someone I like, I can’t go wrong with that store.”  
“Wait!” Blake said almost in a daze realizing what Velvet was going to do.  
“What’s wrong? I want Coco to smile at me the same way that you smile at Yang when you get a gift from her.”  
“D-do I really smile?” Blake asked defeated as fire began to fill in Velvet’s eyes.  
“Very much so. It’s kind of hard not to notice when you get silent and start acting all fidgety.”  
Blake Belladonna got to her knees Velvet looked around in excitement trying to spot the tent. They knew. Everyone knew. She had spent months trying not to be one of those girls, but if Velvet could figure it out, everyone knew. And the nights. WHAT ABOUT THE NIGHTS! She said so much, so loudly. She was always trying to remain a mute about these things, but Yang always made sure she enjoyed her company. This was bad. Really really bad.  
“Look, there it is!” Velvet skipped along to an unmarked black tent that stood hidden, but proudly amongst the other shops.  
Blake couldn’t even find the words to shout at Velvet from going in there. Her life was over. No, its been over. She just didn’t realized she was poisoned for so long.  
Velvet stuck her head in like a school girl in love, then she stood still, in shock. All color drained from her skin as she ran out crying.  
She went on her knees and tried to begin to wipe her eyes from tears. “Why would someone sell things so disgusting?!” She stopped crying and sniffled, looking into Blake's eyes. If she wasn’t crying, Blake would have been. But what Velvet said next made Blake do just that. “PERVERT!” Velvet began to cry with no ending in sight as a small tear began to form in Blake’s.  
“It’s too late now! We’re in this together!” Blake picked Velvet up, both girls fully in blush.  
“Don’t make me go back in there!” Velvet began to panic as more and more eyes were watching. Velvet was acting like Blake the first time Yang introduced her to this store. And as such, she knew where to grab Velvet to prevent her from running. It was the point of no return, and she wasn’t going back empty handed.  
Blake marched into the erotic tent: scared, tired, and ashamed with a blistering bunny furrowing over her shoulder.  
“Oh, hi Blake.” The storekeeper smiled, delighted to see a familiar face. “I just got a new book called “The Secrets of Love”. I’m telling you, those people from Basa come up with the most interesting positions.”  
Blake began to cry.

***

The walk back to the castle remained without incident. Both of them were too embarrassed to talk to each other, and Velvet had her ears dropping down like a dog with her tail between her legs.  
Velvet was carrying a quadruple sealed black bag that the store keeper had suggested and gave them for free. He said it was to promote business and have them come back.  
“Dirty old man. I’m not ever coming back.” Blake looked in her bag to read the title of the book again. At least she had something to read.  
“Hi there darling!” Yang came whistling up from the direction of the training ground. “Ooh. I see you went to that store. And my surprise, I never imagined Velvet getting anything from that store.” Yang peered at the black bags that they both carried. It was doubled stitched to avoid being torn, and she recognised them after all the times that Yang had to hide it after shopping with Blake.  
Velvet began to panic having Blake speak up. “One’s for you, one’s for me. I didn’t want to touch it considering where it’s going to be.”  
“I find that hard to believe.” Yang called her bluff. “ I can see that you’re carrying a book Blake by the way the corners on the bag look. And there is no way you’d let our innocent Velvet go in there without wanting something for her own. Or Coco.”  
“Yang!” Blake yelled.  
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But I do have to say Velvet, bold choice for your first time.”  
“I’m only ever going there once!” Velvet cried through the tears. Yang and Blake patted her on the back.  
“Don’t worry Velvet, everyone goes in that store at least one time.” She chose to leave out the part that she could count the amount of people bold enough to walk out of there with a bag on two hands.  
“Yeah. And I’ve talked to April sometimes when I see her in there.” Yang said.  
“Mom?” Velvet’s voice cracked after saying this.  
“Oh that’s right. You weren’t supposed to know.”  
At this point, Velvet’s tears ran dry and could only stand dumbfounded. It was the sad truth she needed to grow accepting of. And even more so if she wanted to be with Coco.  
“Enough of that.” Blake changing the subject. “I thought that you were training with Coco today?”  
“We were, but Coco hasn’t slept in todays and passed out on the spot. Check it out.” Yang began to whistle in a pattern similar to that of a bird. “That means forward right position. Still don’t know what that means, but it seemed useful.”  
“Wait, Coco hasn’t been sleeping?” Velvet overheard coming back to reality.  
Blake thought back on the previous two nights where Coco went to wander the desert and the night she spent to eat at the castle. “I guess she hasn’t.”  
“Good, now’s your chance. Take Coco to your bed and practice on her.”  
Velvet flat out refused to do anything to Coco in her sleep, something Blake wished from Yang, but she did agree to have Coco sleep in her bed considering that was the closest one here.  
“So.” Yang said as the two of them watched Velvet run off towards the train grounds. “What kind of book did you get there?”


	8. Crosshares Kingdom

It was an odd state for Coco to be in, but she knew for sure she was in a bed.  
Coco kept her eyes shut as she felt the rigid edges of the wall grinding against her back. She wasn’t asleep, but she felt like she was. There were no dreams of fire or snow, but instead a black head with small various colors that painted her atmosphere. Closing your eyes didn't make it completely dark, and Fox said that he saw some arrangement of color that wasn’t entirely the same.  
So all Coco remembered was passing out from exhaustion during training then waking up in a bed. She didn’t know where she was, but it felt familiar to the point where she felt comfortable.  
This made Coco remind herself of falling asleep in the mountains to wake up in a cave. It wasn’t usual for her to take cover from the snow, but a bear had dragged her there and was probably going to eat her.  
Not taking any chances of getting kidnapped somehow, Coco slowly got up front the bed she was in and let her eyes adjust to the light.  
It was a slightly pink painted room that seemed fairly large in size. The sun shone from the window, setting over the horizon a little less than half. The bed she was on was large enough to fit at least two bears if it didn’t collapse under her weight. The exit to this room was a heavy wooden door that had personal engravings and carvings. It was abstract and unique, so it fit Coco’s personal opinion of art and remembrance.  
“This is Velvet’s room.” Coco had recognized the door as soon as she saw it, and couldn’t help but admire it.  
She remembered a certain development that always seemed to happen to the couples of her home and quickly checked the bed for a sleeping rabbit by her side. She was relieved to find she was the only one in the room, and a bit disappointed at the same time.  
Looking back at the sun, it was somewhere between 7 and 8, on the earlier side. Soon, there will be a rabbit coming into the bed to sleep, and Coco wasn’t going to intrude.  
Getting up slowly was something that Coco forgot to do, as the second she stood up out of the bed, her knees buckled and forced her on her side.  
“Guess not.” Coco thought to herself guessing it was going to be another twenty minutes before she could walk on her own.  
Facing under the bed, she saw something under the bed that was shrouded by darkness and was protected by a black bag. She could tell by a glance that it was almost completely empty, but a object was within the bag which piqued Coco’s curiosity.  
It wasn’t her motto to snoop or gossip around, but spend more time with Velvet had made her realized that she doen’t know a thing about her. What food she likes or how she acts. She was a woman who knew how to take care of her body, unlike Coco, and was form a generous enough family to have a massive refugee camp in their kingdom. Her family were good people, but she still needed to know more about Velvet before getting too serious. And as such, Coco was curious to know what were some of the things that Velvet wanted to keep hidden under her bed.  
Under the bed isn’t as safe as you might think it is, so it’s better to just keep it on you if you can hide it well. That was a reason Coco kept the black orb on her, instead of leaving it under the bed at the inn.  
This made her smile at the thought, and took the bag out of it’s spot to view what was within.  
Coco couldn’t say she was surprised what she found, she also couldn’t say what it was. What was in the black bag was so unfamiliar, that Coco couldn’t even figure out how it worked. She couldn’t find any use for it and the entire thing just felt off.  
It must have been a memento of some kind. It wasn’t strange from personal objects being as weird as they looked. It could have been passed down from her family for all she knew. Coco knew she shouldn’t have been snooping, so she tossed back the object back into its spot and crawled back on the bed.  
“What a strange few days this has been.” After these thoughts, Coco thought it bes to get some good, solid sleep.

***

“Emerald, we have a problem.” Mercury appeared before Emerald, covered by the blackness of the night. It was the meeting spot they had conducted for this operation, and was only used to exchange information. So even though Mercury didn’t have much to report, it was important.  
“What happened?” Emerald dropping her playful show attitude she had at the gates. She was relieved having to drop the act, and was always one sliver short from cutting the next person who walked in. This was her down time to relax, even if it was still part of the job.  
“We lost it.”  
“What do you mean?” They spoke in short phrases not wanting to talk about it too much. They both knew enough to talk out of context, and still needed to make it quick.  
“We were attacked at the last second. Neo managed to fight him off, but Cinder took a heavy blow and hasn’t woken up yet.”  
“Shhh.” Emerald warned Mercury again for saying names.  
“Sorry, but Neo is asking for more payment because of this and you’re the one who has the money.”  
Emerald grunted and tossed her reserves of Mercury. That money was used for emergencies, and that she had to use it so early meant they were in a tight spot. Money wasn’t an issue at all, the issue was that there is one.  
Emerald look around the district before continuing. This was the part where most people messed up. If there is anyone, so much as a light of a fire or a foot step, they would just leave  
“What do we do now?” She was concerned if they needed to leave. They still needed to stay here until the black orb was in their possession, and Neo’s time was running low if that was only just for compensation.  
“Say, look at the logs they keep at the front gates. If it’s someone from here, they should have signed out.  
That was going to be a problem for Emerald. The gatekeeper, Blake, was a faunus. They could see adeptly in the dark plus she knew who Emerald was. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she might be able to pull it off by acting like a friend. It worked on the blonde bimbo, but Blake was a bit more reserved and questioned everyone one of her friends. This is hard, but doable.  
“Oh.” Mercury added before the two of them left. “We are to leave immediately during the battle. Orb in hand or not, it’ll find a way to make it back to us.” He smiled as they both took their leave in the darkness.  
***

Velvet strood happily through her castle corridors walking steadily towards her room. There wasn’t anything to be too happy to be about the castle halls skipping along with a smile, but she had a lovely knight sleeping in her room and that was enough to brighten her day.  
These past few days had caused some strain against Velvet and she was worried that people would have seen the sagging under her eyes due to the stress and lack of sleep. She had managed, but that required to do some work on her part. But the sun was gone and the moon was out. The windy sands didn’t whistle against the glass and there wasn’t a Cardin to keep her up at night. It was going to e a time of relaxation and joy, even if it’s going to be short lived since she’s forced to sleep through most of it.  
Shaking her head and clapping her cheeks, she prepared to enter her own room. She thought of how bizarre it must have been to be nervous entering her own room. But with a smile on her face and on the tip of her toes, she was prepared to meet Coco with a joy if she was up or give her silence if she was still asleep. While either one was a good option, she was quietly rooting for the latter.  
The door didn’t make a creak as Velvet pushed it open with just enough force to not make a sound. There, her eyes lay upon the resting Coco who had her head away from the shining moon.  
It was hard to get into the same bed as anyone who was almost completely naked, but she had to make do with the process.  
The arrangements were Sun’s idea when it came to the clothes. When they figured out that Coco hadn’t had enough time to rest, there surly wasn’t enough room for her to change or at least clean her clothes.  
Yang and her decided to strip her down almost completely, allowing her some decency with the bandages wrapped around her chest and the extra pair of shorts she had underneath.  
While she was clothed, Coco did well hiding her skin from the amount of clothes she wore made for the winter. The first thought was she was hyper sensitive towards the sun, but it seemed that wasn’t the case while they were training. Velvet had noticed that her eyes were a bit straining and the idea of giving her some eye protection came up. Ruby suggested something along the lines of using the glass they use for the palace to protect her eyes. So instead of the conventional uses they have for blurry vision, it would be made primarily for the sun. It was an interesting idea to say the least, but he most she could do for the day was to make see through blindfold.  
It works fine enough to keep sand out of the eyes, but it seemed to have a habit of getting sand caught between the twines so it will make it useless before too long.  
Not to sure if she should wait for a more practical method or not, Velvet set the blindfold on her desk where she left other things like her diary and her cooking recipes. The black bag remained safely under her bed. No must ever know what was in the bag. No one.  
Other than her eyes, something else did bother Velvet when she dropped Coco in her bed. That was scars.  
Her arms and legs were fine, only harboring small scars that looked more like stretch marks then it did wounds. But the closer it got to her body, the worst it got.  
Her shoulders her decorated with scratches and white dots. On both arms, it went down halfway to her biceps with the farthest going directly on top of them. It was hard to tell what could have caused wounds bizarre as these ones, but it looked similar.  
There was time when they were trying to extract Ruby out of the Oasis when a squirrel latched onto her arm and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t doing anything as a dastardly like clawing and nipping at her, but it left red enough marks that it left them all concerned.  
As for Coco, it looked like a baby lion had latched onto her arms, claws and fangs alike, fully ready to take the arm off. The scratches felt more that claw marks and the dots were where the teeth sunk into Coco’s flesh. It was hard to imagine Coco being put into that kind of situation, especially since the same type of scars appear on both arms. That wasn’t even the worst of it.  
On Coco’s back, below the shoulder blades, were very deep and thick claw marks that embedded into her skin. It wasn’t white like the scars on her shoulders, but were pink as if the blood behind them was still trying to heal. These didn’t look as playful as a lion or squirrel having fun with her arms, it felt like an attack from a fully grown bear that was thrashing around at her spine.  
It was hard for Velvet to look at.  
Brushing aside her concerned, Velvet set herself up on the bed facing Coco as she slept. Velvet was always under the impression that the strong snored in their sleep like Nora or Yang do in theirs. There had been small pieces of metal that had been left after Coco had punched Cardin, so even as she didn’t didn’t punch his cape or belt directly, still sent the metal shattering. Velvet did consider Coco strong, but Coco did not snore as happily as do Yang or Nora when they rest.  
Velvet thought that Coco was just a special case, or maybe that her idea of what a strong person is like was warped by the ones around her. Still smiling, she began to finish her thoughts before calling it a night.  
Coco was mumbling something that was incoherent to make any real words out of it. The shining moon from the window illuminated her features. Velvet began to piece together why she didn’t seem happy sleep. She added that Coco does look relieved, but her face was far from bliss. It wasn’t a face that looked forward to the daily rests at night, but felt like something that Coco was forced to do to keep moving everyday; different from those to begged for rest and sleep when they felt they needed it. Coco only rested when she found time, or when her body forced her to. But even an agitated pouty face still looks adorable as Velvet continued to watch the play of emotions come from the knight in front of her.  
“How is she so cute?! It’s amazing.” Velvet cuddle next to Coco sacrificing courtesy for body warmth. She prayed that when Coco woke up she wouldn’t be mad at her; and if so, maybe the bath plan she asked Blake to set up would calm her down.

***  
Pyrrha looked up from the book from the book she was reading, slowly shifting her eyes to the window in the dead of night.  
Sensing someone approaching her door, she marked the place she was reading with a small folding of the page and laid it quietly on the table beside her. She then picked up her sword, known as “Miló”  
Pyrrha stepped over to her husbands door reaching the handle with her empty hand, but stopped half way.  
There was no need to alert Jaune. She couldn’t sense any malice from the person slowly approaching her house, but that had often fooled her in the past.  
Jogging over the the back of the house, she opened one of the ground windows and quickly jumped out of it, landing with a roll.  
Pyrrha herself enjoyed the rush of jumping out of a window in an escape attempt, but Jaune did not that at all. He felt that the stairs from the back of the house ought to be used since they spent the time and money to install them. That was one way he showed his faithfulness to Jili. Those stairs were meant to be used after all.  
She wouldn’t dare tell her husband about her nightly activities, and hadn’t mentioned it since the day they arrived here.  
Pyrrha decided at the very least to see who was intruding on her property, so she ran through the small bushes and wedges, keeping close to the house and staying prone. It was there that she saw someone standing in front of her house just about to knock on the door. She had long black hair that seemed to blend in with the night. If it hadn’t been the small night candle she liked to keep lit, she might have missed the cat ears sprouting from her head.  
“Forgive me. I wasn’t expecting company this late.” Seeing it was a familiar face, Pyrrha dropped the hiding and jogged up the steps to her house.”  
“Oh! If it isn’t the fable knight Pyrrha. I thought you were home, so I thought now was a good time to talk.” Blake smiled back at her not accepting Pyrrha's invitation for entry in her home.  
Pyrrha had noticed that Blake was still in her work uniform, so whatever it was, it needed to be addressed quickly. “Hello Blake. Any news today?”  
“Oh yes. As you know, Ren went about and scouted Cardin’s forces.” Pyrrha nodded allowing Blake to continue. “Well, he was a bit vague on the information like he didn’t know to much himself, but he said not to worry about it to much. Though, the important part he mentioned, was that the battle is going to happen sometime in the early afternoon. He hinted at the morning, but again, he suggested it was going to be in the afternoon.” Pyrrha felt this was odd that Blake was telling her this, as she made it clear that she wasn’t going to be orchestrating in the battle this time around. But it seemed that Blake caught onto this and went straight to the point. “In other news, Velvet wanted me to hand this to you.” Blake reached into a mailbag she was carrying and handed her a small letter.  
“Why didn’t you just deliver it to the house?”  
“Velvet had specifically said you hand it to you Pyrrha. Not to the house or to Jaune. But you.”  
“Why… is that so?” Pyrrha cut herself off accepting the letter.  
“If you’ll excuse me, I still have to make a few more runs.” Blake indicated at the bag to show that she had a few more letters she needed to send. “Until we meet again.” Blake bowed in a joking way, and seemed to vanish in the night.  
After Blake had left, Pyrrha opened the letter. The fact that it was meant for her and not together with her husband filled her with an array of emotions - strength and guilt - and after reading the contents, Pyrrha couldn’t help but blink a few times.  
It contained the work that was going to ensure tomorrow and offered a portion of it to “bathe together to and relieve stress.”  
There was a list of the attendees that read Velvet, Yang, Blake, Pyrrha, Weiss, Penny, and Ruby. Nora’s name should have been within the list, but everyone knew that Nora would want to spend the night with Ren since he’s been away.  
Pyrrha giggled at the thought. It was going to happen early morning, but she had plenty of time thanks to her retirement. She didn’t laugh at the concern she had before, but with the idea of Weiss and Penny being in a bath with Ruby.  
Velvet must have thought she was going to act as the middle man for all this, seeing that she remained neutral in this charade that Ruby was having. Blake had sided with Weiss as Yang sided with Penny. It was weird that those two could keep up with a relationship that wasn’t their business, but she was sure everyone enjoyed the chats they had when they are together.  
“All right! Guess I need to get ready!”  
Pyrrha began with a slow jog as she entered her house.

***  
Coco woke up slowly, still fighting the urge to keep her eyes closed for an elongated rest. It was almost six in the morning, and Coco could still feel the warmth of a bunny snuggled tightly around her chest.  
“Velvet.” Coco called out her name but got no response.  
Taking this as an opportunity, Coco rolled out of the bed and laid sprawled on the ground. It was a small habit of hers not to get out of bed without a fight. Most days she would lay awake in the cold bitterness of snow just waiting for the time to go by; only to continue her daily chores as soon as she got out. So rolling out of bed, as ridiculous as it may be, kept her from staying another two and a half hours thinking of nothing.  
Standing up, Coco massaged her eyes and cracked her back while she stood and watched Velvet sleep. She looked like she was in pure bliss from the moment Coco looked at her face, something which Coco knew she didn’t do rested and slightly envied her.  
Not taking time for subtlety, Coco shook Velvet awake by the shoulders giving her no chance of sleeping until noon.  
“Huh- oh. What’s up Coco.” Velvet’s voice was croaky and rigid.  
Coco chose to avoid the most obvious response in saying “not you apparently” and instead asked a question that bothered her the most.  
“So, how was sleeping with someone else in the bed like?”  
“Oh, it was great. I was just going to stay in a little and-” She stopped as a look of dread peaked from a smile of guilt. “Oh no. I’m so, so sorry. I was just going to see what it felt like, then I forgot and fell asleep.”  
“Yeah, that’s what going to bed usually does to you.”  
She got up frantically and started bustling around her room in a desperate attempt to tidy up. Coco put her arms on her shoulder to tell her that she already went into her room once. Calming Velvet down, she went to sit back on the bed as Coco finished up changing. Velvet was abnormally quiet all the while looking fidgety and scratching herself.  
“What’s wrong with you?” Coco raised her eyebrows before asking the question.  
Velvet looked around flustered knowing she looked bothered. And after taking a breath, she calmed down and talked. “I don’t know if you’re mad at me.”  
“For what, falling asleep?”  
Velvet nodded.  
Coco snorted at the thought. “Don’t worry, I’m not angry. Trust me,” Coco got down on eye level and stared at Velvet directly in the eyes. “You’ll know when I’m angry.”  
That came out a little too serious than what Coco would have liked, but she didn’t bother correcting her behavior. Velvet was much cuter when she smiled, and it suited her much more than a frown or ears tucked down in fear.  
Coco’s been smiling a lot too lately, but realizing this made her stop. Should she really be smiling now; when there is still so much to do and so little she can go off.  
“Hey Coco, can I ask you something?” Velvet asked cheerfully making Coco’s face go from stone cold to mildly interested.  
“And what’s that?”  
“Well, I invited all the girls to have a little bath and was wondering if you would like to join?”  
“Sure thing.” Answering unhesitantly, Coco stared at Velvet like it was the most important thing in the world.  
Velvet seemed to be shocked by her prompt response and had trouble putting the next words in sentences. “I was ready to put up a bit of an argument, are you sure you’re not busy or anything?”  
“I have spent the last few weeks walking through this desert with not so much as a cool breeze. I haven’t had anything that I could call ‘clean’ since I got here. I NEED this!” Coco’s hands were shaking at the suggestion of a bath.  
Staying clean was important in the wilderness and was even more to a woman. With no right or reason to refuse, she was more than eager to step forth into a bath.  
So with nothing but glee and joy in their eyes, the two of them made their way to the baths where they would meet up with the others.  
***  
Coco scrubbed hard at her legs and hair. A woman who didn’t care or clean their hair could hardly be considered an adult. She scrubbed away the dirt that was attached to her neck along with the sand that seemed to dissolve in the water. She was impressed enough as it is that they could have such a huge bath in the desert, even if it was due to Penny’s oasis.  
Satisfied with her own work, she leaned with her back against the wall and her arms across her chest to soak in the water that she had long since missed. It was much too hot for her to run around and play like some of them, but there were a few who could enjoy the luxury of sitting in a bath and let the stress melt away from your soul.  
It seemed to Coco and everyone watching the show that Ruby may be dealing with more stress than she let on. A minute ago, she has running and splashing like a child who discovered water for the first time in their life. She was still acting like a child now when it came to the water, but this time when they first discover the deep end of the pool - after ten minutes.  
Weiss and Penny took to wasted time to proclaim their love for Ruby as they slowly got closer to a war than the real one that was happening later today.  
Coco may have looked calm, but she made sure to keep a close track on the time so they wouldn’t be late.  
That would be an interesting story to tell. The kingdom of Jili met their fated end because their top knights were soaking in the tub. Well, one already drowned, but Coco was quick to change that.  
Ruby’s lifeless body was already past the point of saving as the two who proclaimed their love to her were to busy trying to get rid of each other instead of caring for the maiden. No one worried about the fight, and no one was going to get seriously hurt now. Especially not in front of Velvet. So taking this moment to impress the princess, Coco made do with Ruby.  
Grabbing Ruby’s leg and pulling her near like a log floating down a river, Coco sat her unconscious body up in front of her, making sure a few people were watching. With a sudden jab, Coco punched at Ruby’s back forcing all the water that kept her unconscious to be expelled from her body. Coco wasn’t expecting an applaud, but a nice well done would have suited better than silence.  
Cough cough “Thanks Coco, I’m not sure how long I could have lasted with those two.” Ruby laughed nervously as Coco placed her on the spot next to her. Coco didn’t have any dying questions to ask her, but she was concerned about her age and experience in the heat of battle.  
“So, you seem a little young to be a knight?” Not finding the right words to put it softly, that was the best Coco could ask about the two subjects.  
“Well I’ll have you know,” Ruby stood up revealing more than what Coco would have liked. “I just turned 19.”  
Pfft.  
“It’s not funny!” Ruby shouted out Coco’s snort with hints of insecurity. “I was even allowed to become a knight early thanks to my skill and didn’t have anyone vouch for my place.” Yang and Weiss shook their head knowing that wasn’t the case. Someone was going to have to tell her sooner or later, but she felt too young to be brought up in the world of adults. The bliss of ignorance.  
“What about you?” Ruby asked. “Where were you before this?”  
“Oh, lots of places. But I mainly like spending my time in the snowy mountains hunting. Not much to hunt in the middle of the desert, but you can hunt different things besides animals here.”  
The redhead who had eyed Coco this entire time took this chance to join the conversation. “You travel a lot. You see anyone here you recognize?”  
The two of them stared at Ruby indicating they wanted to speak in private. Ruby was more an adult in this sense as she left to deal with Weiss and Penny fighting without so much as a question.  
“Tell me, what’s the princess of Lonther doing here?” Coco happy to see a familiar face, skipped the pleasantries and went straight to the questions.  
“Former princess of Lonther. Hard to be kept in the family after the marriage ordeal I pulled off.” Pyrrha looked up at the ceiling of the bath to recall old times.  
The two of them met on the street in her kingdom of Lonther. Well, it wasn’t actually her kingdom to run and wasn’t anywhere near to the throne to call it her own either. She was way too far down the line the be considered a candidate that allowed her to walk the streets freely. Of course, she was still a princess; which meant she could still be used as a political tool or a hostage.  
“Told you that was going to happen. How is that blonde bloke of yours anyway?”  
“Well, that blonde bloke of mine had our wedding about a month ago and things are running smoothly.”  
“Hey, don’t get offended so easily.” Coco raised her arms in defence. “How are things going? Anything I can help with?”  
“Coco, you already did enough by getting us out on Lonther. There isn’t anything more you can do for us; and as I said.” Pyrrha rubbed her belly. “Things are running smoothly.”  
“Damn. Is a congratulations in order?” Pyrrha looked down in defeat to answer Coco’s question of celebrating. “You haven't told him yet?”  
“This is exactly the kind of thing that just gets brought up in a conversation. Hi honey, anything interesting happen today? No not really. Oh and I’m pregnant.” Pyrrha doing her best at an imitation of her husband. “I quit my job as a battle tactician so things don’t go the wrong way with this. I just fear that this battle in a little while isn’t going to work out as well as I hope.”  
“Don’t be.” Coco calming Pyrrha down. “We have fine knights here who wouldn’t dare act childish.” Saying this, Coco and Pyrrha watched Penny pickup Weiss over her head, flipped her around, and dropped her right on her head. “In a fight.” Coco finished. “In a fight.”  
Sighing, they both remained silent waiting for the other one bring up a topic. There was a lot of catching up to do, but relaxing came first. Finally, Pyrrha caved in.  
“How are you doing?” Coco raised an eyebrow at the question. “With whole West Rampage?”  
“Well, dealing with it if that helps. Watched all of Valiric burn down to the ground, and that’s still pretty fresh in my mind. Watched my people getting kidnapped probably to be sold as slaves. Dealing with it well, maybe. Am I dealing with it now, oh maliciously.”  
Pyrrha didn’t know how to react with such touchy information so she kept her eyes down. Wanting to change the subject, Coco did it for her  
“So wait, how many princesses do we have in this bath right now?”  
“Guess that depends on how you think of it.” Scanning the faces of the people in the bath, Pyrrha and Coco started counting them off. “Officially, there is one acting as of now.” Their eyes stopped on Velvet who smiled and waved at them. “Two if you count yourself.”  
“Just one then. Kind of hard to be a ruler if you don’t have any people to rule with.” The two nodded in agreement.  
“Formerly, three. And in the future, if everything goes right, Nora might end up becoming a princess.”  
Coco laughed at this. “Of what? The shopping district?”  
“Ren is technically a prince. Whether or not their dating is a matter all of their own. Right now it’s seven for two against.”  
“Make it eight. Speaking of which, how do you think Nora would handle the mark?”  
Every royalty member had some sort of mark that proved their lineage. For Velvet it was on her ankle and Pyrrha was on her right shoulder. For Coco, just under her left breast.  
“I still think you put it in the weirdest of places.”  
“I disagree.” Countering Pyrrha’s claim. “It’s just over my heart. So if it ever stops, you’ll know where to push. It also gives a spot to aim at.” Uncrossing her arms, she looked at the mark of Valiric before hiding it back again. “Don’t be spouting this off to anyone. You hear? Don’t need the same people who did Valiric in Jili.”  
Pyrrha smiled putting a finger over her mouth to remain silent. It was nice for the both of them to see a friendly face, and now was just the right amount of relaxing.  
Standing up in sync, they began stretching their joints before heading out at last. A full day of work is a head of them, and Pyrrha might be dealing with more stress than what Coco’s going to feel this afternoon. It’s going to be a hard battle, but at least Coco can see what’s happening.  
“One last thing.” Pyrrha asked as they both walked out of the water, not being in secret this time around. “How did you become a knight? That took Ruby years while you become one on the spot.”  
“I have Yang to thank for that one” Coco held up an invisible glass for a toast. “If It wasn’t for her, I might not have been invited to this bath. But I’m telling you right now. You need to hire a better castle guard. That green haired chick almost got me arrested if I gotten lost.”  
Coco recalled the time where she was giving absurd amount of directions towards the library and a petting zoo. To Coco’s surprise, they did of a zoo of sorts for their mounts in the Oasis, as long with a huge indoor bath. But she was happy at least she could meet Velvet through her. She could have gotten arrested by Mercury, but it seemed well worth the risk when Velvet was…  
Coco stopped just as she got out of the bath. The sudden stop was completely uncalled for that made Penny stop beating up Weiss to look at her.  
“Son of a bitch.”


	9. Chapter 9

There was so much to do around the defense lines that time hardly permitted Coco to do anything. There were certainly not enough arrows to give everyone the desired 30 and Jili simply didn’t have enough archers to use. She had a bit on her from her hunting age, but she could hand out four arrows to every archer they had. So in all, they needed much more men.  
In Valiric, they didn’t have a shortage on supplies. They had plenty of robes they would wear on a day to day basis as well as full plated armor they would lay haphazardly in the hallways. It also wasn’t limited to protective gear. They had bows, swords, quarterstaffs, mauls - really just anything that could be considered a weapon.  
Jili didn’t have anything of the sorts; which might explain the situation.  
Coco casually took a bow from the weapon cache that was tightened with a rope on top of the castle walls. It wasn’t anything like a hunter's bow so it was badly used and beaten from the years. She moved her hands up and down the belly and found it was surprisingly light. It wasn’t because she was strong or it was made out of a light material, it was just a bad bow.  
The wood crackled upon pulling back the string, and Coco stopped fearing it would break. The bow might work better by batting someone over the head with it then releasing an arrow.  
Coco put up with it and peered over the wall. “I’m going down a bit.” She told a guard next to her who was focusing his attention over the sand dunes to the approaching army.  
“Careful.” He didn’t seem too concerned about Coco’s well being seeing as he was gauging the distance until the army arrived within shouting range. He was simply being courteous.  
Sighing, Coco made her way to the bottom.  
Coco surveyed the interior of the fortress walls from where she was walking down.  
Sunlight shone from the small slivers of opening from within the wall. It was about 2 feet thick of sandstone that brushed off some of it’s content on her hand. It must have been thicker when it was built. The one thing that could make this wall worse if it creaked when it was stepped on.  
Footsteps headed up to where Coco was in a jog. She shifted her body to press her back against the wall to let more soldiers get past. There were four of them, and each one had trouble getting past each other. They were self aware enough to shift themselves up against the other wall, it was still hard for both parties to make it past one another.  
“Much too small.” Coco said to herself after the encounter.  
Frankly speaking, Coco hated how calm things were. That said, it was also true that she could very well be the most capable person for this battle and would make the challenges ahead much more difficult is she was not here. With that in mind, Coco prepared herself with the tasks ahead.  
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”  
Velvet, Yang and Blake were sitting along a badly beaten wooden table. It was covered with a map of the area along with the kingdom slightly cut off.  
Velvet and Yang were happily talking to each other and left poor Blake to her tired self. She was beautiful of course, but the tiredness had left her with obvious bags under her eyes. Her hair reached down to her waist which was mashed up, and looked even more tired under the direct sunlight.  
“Oh, no apologies is needed. We were just finishing up the battle plan and wanted more people’s opinion on it.” Velvet left the conversation she was having with Yang and turned to face Coco. Velvet offered her a seat, which Coco politely declined.  
If they were just finalizing everything, there wasn’t much use to sticking around since the enemy was just a few miles away; so any drastic changes would be for the worst.  
The plan was to spread into groups of four around the outside of the wall to support each other. So if the plan was to fight, they were going to give one. But if the battle yielded too difficult, that is one of the advantages of making high walls. Just close the gates and wait for them to leave. Sadly, the point was to show they weren’t hiding, so that wasn’t an option they could use.  
And as far as battle plans went, Coco frowned at this, it felt too basic.  
“What’s wrong?” Yang picked up on Coco’s distressed and sounded worried.  
“Nothing I hope. It just feels that we have way to little man power to give this a proper fight.”  
Coco would have suggested an alternative approach, but that was only meant to stall for time. It acted like a turtle where she would have everyone who can fight remain at the entrance of the castle. So even if they had an army of 50 or 10,000, only 20 people were fighting at a time. That also meant it involved them never getting tired and not losing anyone or they would just break through making that plan useless. So spreading out into a few groups so whenever one was being targeted they would just support them with an arrow volley. If worse came to worse, they would just start chucking weapons and rocks over to see if it would hit anyone.  
“I understand the concern, but we have a way to deal with them in the city.” Velvet smiled back.  
That was kind of the problem. They were fully expecting to fight in the castle where they would easily move in the streets for a flank. While that did have some sort of advantage in of it’s own, that wasn’t the only problem.  
Coco cocked her head back to hear the bustling from the city behind them. Not a single one of them was worried about the outcome of this battle, it did help calm them down, the sort of ignorance bothered Coco most of all. It felt careless.  
“Captains! We got a runner!”  
In the middle of Coco’s thoughts, the knight from before shouted at the table looking through a small brass spyglass.  
Coco could see a single horsemen riding through the desert sands towards the direction of the main gates. It was adorn in heavy steel plated armor that caught with the sand and wind.  
Everyone knew of the one person who would be dumb enough to bring a horse covered in platemail to a desert.  
“Hey Yang.” Yang perked her head after Coco’s call. “Show the dumb prince how to properly say hello.”  
Yang smiled with this and got up from her seat. Giving an unearthly smile, she walked into the desert with her hands over her head. Not in the form of a surrender, but that of lax.

 

This may have been the only time that Yang as close to Cardin before. She had seen him from the pedestal a while back, but this may be the only time she’s ever going to be this close. Yang was going to have to thank Coco later for this, but this might be Coco’s way of thanking Yang.  
“That woman.”  
Yang smiled at her thoughts with her arms still behind her head. Cardin was the one who was supposed to talk to her, but Yang met up with him part way.  
She could tell that Cardin scoffed at an unrecognizable face. But Yang couldn’t sympathize. How could she forget this man’s face?  
“You there. I demand that I speak with your-”  
“I’m just going to stop you right there.” Yang pointed directly at Cardin and then at his horse. “Why is she wearing armor?”  
The horse was in a full suit of battle armor, decorated in platemail and chain male to cover it’s legs. It was a fine horse that needed to have constant attention to grow as big as it was, but that wasn’t the problem Yang was addressing. “This is the desert. Why would you bring a horse in metal to a heated place like this?”  
“Why, how could an incompetent swine like you ever know the proper way to treat an animal?”  
“Shhhhh. I’m asking the questions here.” Yang held up a finger to Cardin who was refusing to get off his horse. “Your… army, do you expect them to fight in those conditions.”  
Peering behind the prince, yang took a look at the army behind him; if she could call it one. There was a about a 4 to 1 split between faunus and humans, and the faunus who were significantly higher in number didn’t look ready to fight. Most were in brown rags and all were bare footed.  
The predatory animals such as tigers or bears were promptly put in the back of the line as if not to expose their strongest fighters in the battle. Which left the scared, almost crying women in the front. Their legs were shaking and it seemed everyone was about to hurl.  
Then there were the humans. She noticed that they sent up the groups in squares of eight, each one housing a mixture of faunus and humans alike. The humans were stationed in a line just outside their conventional box to were they were decorated like a fully armed soldier. They were wearing helmets, armor, and had a little contraption which was a little chain collar that was wrapped around everyone’s neck.  
They were like the guards to the hounds. Though in this case, they collared people.  
Now Yang was mad.  
“Get off your horse. I want to speak with you man to man.” She crossed her arms over her chest and began tapping her foot on the sand. It wasn’t clear to her how she was actually looking, but she got the right result when Cardin scoffed and got off. “You won’t be able to win. It would be easier if you just let everyone here go to keep us the trouble from chasing you down afterwards.”  
“Please! Look around you!” Cardin through his hands in the army and point at his soldiers. “I have an army of over 4,000! And I can tell that your army doesn’t even consist that of 100.” Cardin spat at Yang when giving to speech.  
Yang knew that their army was very, very small compared to the size of their walls; she also knew that looking back at Jili now would ruin how she looked at it. He was right in saying that they had no chance winning an actual fight against 4,000 soldiers. That is, if they were. “One could have a 1,000, you can have 10,000 for all we care about. But when it comes down to it,” Yang took a single step forward, “We have more soldiers.”  
“Why you little!”  
Cardin pulled back a punch and charged at Yang. Yang could have easily let the punch hit her without moving, but that wasn’t acceptable in this situation.  
Calming down, the next set of events played as followed.  
Yang was only 5’8. A little tale for women, but average height for men. While her hair and certain shoes made her look taller than she was, she was still only 5’8. Cardin was just about six feet tall.  
She was used to fighting people around her height, if not a little smaller, while Cardin was at an obvious height difference. Though, the one person how was taller than she was and probably has much more fighting experience than this whole kingdom, that title belongs to Pyrrha. She was a little smaller in person, but in full battle gear she was just as tall as Cardin.  
So when Cardin was pulling a full force left swing at Yang, it felt more like a pulled shield bash to the skull that Pyrrha was notoriously famous for. And time after time and again, when someone tried hooks on Pyrrha, she either blocked and head budded you if you were female; if you were male... well.  
Cardin’s legs went limp and is face grew pale. The first look Yang could see was one that wasn’t in pain, but in confusion. At first it didn’t look like where he was. But as the time past and the seconds flew, pain erupted from the middle of his legs and he hit the floor moaning.  
Yang was sure that Cardin was at least seven feet when she had kicked him, but now he was writhing on the ground in pain.  
Yang took her own advice when she had told Coco to aim a little lower. And though Blake had made her swore a path a harmony and not to seek a path of vengeance, revenge was overrated because that felt good.  
Her friends behind her were cheering, whistling and clapping when Yang arrived back in the safety of her home. Coco was the one who was whistling on her way back, Nora was exaggerated how high Cardin flew, Blake remained silent.  
She may have looked just as bit confused as Cardin did a bit ago, but Yang could tell. Yang could tell what was going on her little adorable kitty’s head, and it was joy. A smile was forced back behind her lover's face, but even a little bit of her lip was all Blake needed to do.  
As such, no matter what the outcome of this battle told, everyone knew they already won. But Blake in particular was the happiest of all.

 

The battle followed quickly afterwards. There were large movements coming from Giramwen army- upon seeing that, Coco knew the time has come.  
Coco ran across the top of the castle wall wearing the borrowed armor of Jili.  
She could feel people's gazes at her when she ran by them. Close to sixty percent of all their soldiers were stationed on the top with her, equipped with bows and blow horns. Most of the rest were in their little quad groups scattered around the their battlefield while the remaining few were behind the castle gates wielding spears.  
Ruby (of all people) was stationed captain of her group. Nora for hers and Sun for his. There were more people scattered about, but Coco hadn’t met the rest and therefore couldn’t put a name to the face.  
Still, faunus aren’t animals. There people too.  
Coco lifted her bow aiming down with her foot resting on the overlay of the castle wall. The bow made a few creaking and snapping sounds from the worn down wood, but she paid it little mind.  
I mean, if the world was really smart about this, the faunus are actually a lot better than most people.  
The sound of a horn blew from the enemy lines that was followed by a pathetic battle cry. The men in suits of armor carrying the chains went into a full sprint and left their ‘property’ barely able to keep up. There were a few in the mix who looked eager to run with them, and even began encouraging the people around them as well.  
Is the world going to accept such ideas like treating faunus as people? Of course not. We can’t even handle people with different skin color let alone being a bit animal. The world may not be able to help these people, but I can at least help what’s right in front of me.  
Coco felt pain across her finger from withholding a drawn arrow; blood slowly began to trickle down but Coco chose to ignore it.  
As she observed the faunus from the front, there stood a man who was several feet tall, far taller than the comrades around him. The man carried a massive weapon that was just about his height. It was a rusty copper color with a golden sheen. It looked close to a great sword with a bard-like hook on the end.  
...Hey, that’s…  
The city walls literally began to shake when the army charged their forces directly at the it. It seemed that the people in charge had instructed their army to do the closest thing of shoulder checking the wall. Was it meant for intimidation or was it to try to knock the archers off the top of the wall. Coco couldn’t find an answer besides being stupid, but that was a fine way to keep her mind on the battle.  
Cardin was still very far away.  
Given the power of the bow she had, there was a small chance that she could even get the arrow close to him. However, the arrows she had chosen didn’t have a blade on the end of them; it was closer to a small cylinder stone block meant mainly to bludgeon the target, not to pierce. She didn’t know the range of them, and Coco was not confident in shooting a long-range practice arrow over 1,000 feet.  
That being the case, the only thing they could do was aim for the people directly below them, but that would be an extremely stupid idea.  
Although the faunus were very high in numbers, it was made desperately clear to each team that they probably wouldn’t even bother attacking. That was easy to see since they strapped swords to their hands, and both parties seemed to be very wary of each other.  
Now, the main reason it was decided for some people to be on the ground for this attack was to free the faunus from the people who kept them in chains. They were easy to spot since they were the only ones in a full plate of armor and were carrying a steel pole with a spiked ringed collar on the end. Some poor girls neck was in the middle of it, and the only way for her to to cut herself was to advance  
Ruby made quick work of that by cutting the pole in half then thonking the man on the head with the hilt of her scythe.  
The man went down almost too easy as if he wasn’t expect to get hit, while Weiss cared to the women getting the choker off her head.  
We have to pull them back.  
Although the enemies they were facing didn’t want to fight, eventually the guards would figure out what they were doing and start taking hostages. That was where the real problem started were they would grave the nearest person near them and force us to surrender. In other words, this could turn into a one-sided battle really fast if they wanted to save them.  
As Coco was thinking this, a second wave hit the walls again. The shaking felt much worse than the last, and at the same time she heard an almost eerily recognizable sound.  
“Now!”  
She looked down and witnessed something that she couldn’t ever plan for.  
The man with the human length greatsword lifted his weapon on the air flashing those around and behind him. And one by one, each faunus who was on their own two legs got down on their knees and promptly started to bow. Those who were being held remained perfectly still as from the shadows, people rose from behind and choked the remaining soldiers out.  
So what stood before Coco and all of Jili, were several thousand people bowing at their front gates. Could she say that there was a meaning behind this where they were going to fully support Jili. No. But the one thing she was almost certain of was that copper colored great sword and the man who wielded it.  
“Yatsu, is that you!?”  
Coco cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at him.  
This entire battle felt off from the start, and if the people of Valiric were involved, this was going to be anything but a normal one. The way everyone got on their knees wasn’t something you can just tell someone to do. This was the result of a year long gag where everyone would bow the way they are now when Coco came back from her hunting trips. Frankly, no matter how happy she was to find her people, this still left her angry.  
You’ve got to be kidding me. “You wanna go right now Yatsu! Because so help me I will march down there! And where is Fox in all of this!? There is no way you could organize something like this without that weasels help!”  
“Yo.” Fox appeared behind her with one armed raised in a greeting like manner when he approached Coco.  
Coco was half ready to strangle him if Yatsu hadn’t said something back. “Lady Coco, I am glad to see that you are in safe hands. I would like to discuss this further with one, but I first believed that giving these people a break will be in everyone’s best interest.”  
“Don’t talk like some royal advisor to me!.” Coco put her hand over her eyes and gave a long heavy sigh. “Fox…” Coco was sitting down with her arms crossed and head facing the ground. She was hesitating a little, almost acting like she was exhausted from all this. “Just… don’t get kidnapped this time.”  
“You know you love us.” Fox snickered a grin as he dodged the practice arrow aimed for his head. He may be blind, but anyone could have saw that coming.  
“What are you dogs doing!” Screams of Cardin’s defeat could be heard from the outskirts of the battle. “Now, kill them! Kill anyone who opposes me!”  
That reminded Coco she still had to deal with that. But right now, she wanted a break from all this.  
She sat prone there for the next several hours staring at her feet. Several people offered to help her up, but she rejected the offer and just sat.  
She hadn’t mentioned her plan of leaving Jili after the fight to go on a quest to find the survivors of her lost kingdom.It was a stupid, childish dream now, and Coco couldn’t help but shed a little tear out of embarrassment. She was taking this to her grave.


	10. Chapter 10

“Milady, sit up straight!”  
“For the love of everything-”  
“That’s more than enough meat for you Coco, try to indulge yourself in the finer things like vegetables.”  
Coco lowered her forkful of pork and gave an eyeful at Yatsu, being almost impressed by the number of times he had insisted that she remain lady like in a minute. He sat at the head of the table with brass goblet in hand and a golden plate wrapped snuggle on the table before him. It seemed that whenever Coco decided to do anything dissatisfying, he would use the light in the room and shimmer it off the goblet into her eyes.   
Coco had adjusted her head and tilted back on the seat trying to get in a spot where the light would not reach her, all the while defending her own plate from the sly fox sitting next to her. As Coco squirmed, Yatsu’s bright brown eyes scanned the figure heads at the table, searching for the one member of our three man show who is currently hiding under the table. The royalties pasted on a smile observing how Coco ate, though it didn’t take her keen hearing to know what they wanted to say.  
“What’s someone dressed like that sitting in the royal dining hall-”  
“She’s far too pale to be an actual fighter-”  
“I wonder if she’s going to eat the rest of the meat-”  
A few of them were faces that Coco couldn’t recognize, and it was clear that they didn’t want to recognize Coco either. They were their statues around their neck like glittering diamonds in the moon, embedded in heavenly with their atair of buba tops. Their sense of consideration was the same amount of consideration they took into account when their scented perfumes tainted this hall with sweet aromas of cakes and sweet nectar. Sweets was one thing Coco never had a taste for, and certainly didn’t like the smell of it.  
“And what’s your opinion of the city of Jili, Lady Coco.”  
Coco snapped away at the last bite of beef to find a head of a Fox propped right between her legs. His cold, dead eyes surely didn't need to be sparkling at her like they did, but acted quickly enough to relay the question before getting kicked.   
“What do… I beg your pardon now?” Coco looked up at the guest deciding not gaze at the head under her legs.  
“On our way here, I received some pressing matters up int Zenith.” Fox leaned his head in up until his nose nearly touched Coco’s chin. That must have been a sight to see as gasps around the dining table became apparent that Fox Alistair wasn’t given a seat at our side of the table. He said under would be much more soothing.  
“We would be honored to have to stay the night.” A voice came from one of the occupied seats and gave a quick snarl. “I’m sure we could find a room as big as this table, it’s surly more than what your used to.”  
“How sweet of you.” Coco mocked back, tracing her gaze now at Velvet who was across from her, with the king and queen both by her side. Coco’s pulse quickened as the image of being in a bed with Velvet crossed her mind.  
“Thanks for the offer.” Coco finally began to speak. “We would be honored to stay-”  
“But unfortunately we cannot.” Fox’s head cutted in, without so much as a tear of hesitation. “Giramwen’s army has gone too far ahead of us now and we were already falling behind on planning. It would all be pointless now if we stopped here.”  
The excitement faded from Coco’s chest, now filling that void with responsabilites. Coco poked at the unconcerned head now right in front of her with a fork, now slowly making its way back under the table. The two of them never gave Coco enough time to herself, and she really should have known better than to hope on them forgetting.  
“Perhaps after this is all done.” Coco said quietly to herself, hoping for the smallest of chance to stay a little longer. “It must be nice living here- heaving the heat on your back and all the wide open space.”  
“It’s just wind and sand.” Velvet, now cutting in before taking another bite out of her lettuce. “Nothing compared to the things you’ve seen I’m sure.” She flashed an eye closed smile at Coco, but that sweetness immedly vanished when she locked eyes with Yatsu. His head was now slouched and arms crossed, giving the impression he was listening to the words meanings and not the emotions behind them. “Besides, Jili is no longer in any immediate threat. You should at least stay the night to make sure everyone is doing alright.”  
Coco tensed up at the softness of Velvet’s words; they seemed to have a tone that melted the heart of everyone. Coco took a glance under the table to see if Fox could hear, but he seemed to be on the other end of the table stealing snippets of food and putting them back without notice. As the only *advisor* being at my side right now was Yatsu, even the warming voice of Velvet wouldn’t be able to melt the ice of this stone hearted veteran. Even with Velvet’s ear lopping up and done time from time, it didn’t appear that Yatsu was taking any part of it.  
“May I assist you in packing, Lady Coco.”  
Coco turned her shoulder to see Yatsu now standing up and organizing his empty plate. He took hold of Coco’s half eaten one and ushered it away to the servants before she could put up any form of protesting. If Fox was nearby, he would have found a way to sneak the plate off the servant's hand and replace it with a ball.   
“Have you seen Fox?”  
Fox was now on the other end of the table with cabbage just about ready to replace it with a ham. “You ringed?”  
Fox opened his mouth, but shut it when his eyes darted at the seven foot giant now ushering Coco away. “We are leaving, Alister. There will be a few moments for the Lady to pack, so please put back the items you rearranged.”  
Coco tilted her head with a frown. The fact that Yatsu gave Fox a few moments to say goodbye and not me seemed disheartening. But of all the times she’d known him, he had never acted this way around her. He rarely gave Coco orders other than not doing anything stupid.  
“Any reason why?” Fox asked.  
Yatsu shook his head and lowered his voice, being quiet enough only a blind man could hear. “No, but we are in a hurry. We still need to get to Zenith in haste.”  
A sour taste crawled up from Coco’s mouth, as the dark thoughts of that place came back in her mind. Zenith doesn’t just give information, they trade for it.  
Velvet looked desperate to say more, but Yatsu shot her a glare. His iron grip now locked around my shoulders ushering me away from the table.  
“Stop trying to help.”  
Coco gave that look to Velvet, hiding it from Yatsu’s gaze. Velvet narrowed her eyes to Yatsu’s back like a red eyed wolf on the hunt, waiting to kidnap it’s prize. But despite her silent protests, Coco couldn't get the thought of going back to Zenith out of her head. Yatsu knew of Coco’s situation- and if he still needed to go to Zenith despite that, why would he bring along Fox and herself.  
Coco started ahead at the doors in front of her as the questions kept her mind form protesting any further, ignoring the plea to stay from the people around her. Now being directly in front of the exit, the doors flew open nearly knocking the two of them to the ground.  
The golem now walked in.  
Penny stood still, stiff in uniform as she prepared to lead us to our next destination. Her beams among the people behind Coco was the most unsettling, as Penny’s was one full of mischief, and not grief. Despite nearly knocking Coco on the ground, she still responded with a smile reflecting what she felt inside.  
“Salutations.” Penny fixing her orange hair now in the presence of Ruby. “Coco, before your departure we as a kingdom would like to offer you a gift for your outstanding leadership.”  
“I didn’t-” Coco began to speak before retracking her words. “Though I can’t say I did the best job I could have, you may never know how the outcome would have been without me. What kind of gift are we talking about? Wine?”  
Fellow members of the battle nodded in agreement as Coco took this chase to go out swinging. She doubted it would be anything with luxury, as if they were going to give Coco a diamond stitched into Jili’s latest fashion trends. Coco turned back to Yatsu who brought up the idea of leaving in haste. Though he was taken aback by the sudden request, he still remained stone hearted as ever…  
“Coco.” Yatsu’s voice broke through Penny’s conversation, pulling Coco’s focus back to him. “It’s rude to take something that we have given.”  
“But it’s courteous to accept a gift of gratitude.”   
Coco smiled now being able to put Yatsu’s philosophy back at him. Though Yatsu used a work like *take*, the word *offered* was never mentioned. Like the offering that Coco would proudly defend a country that was not of her own, back to the very first chance when she offered to help Velvet.   
As Coco peeked from behind to the princess being mentioned, Coco was shocked how fast Velvet got and rushed towards them. It was only a few moments when she was sitting calmly at the table, now she was staring directly in Coco’s eyes in excitement.   
“You are too kind to us, your highness.” Fox cocked his head between the two, soothing Coco’s heat from bursting.   
“You must be thinking of something special.” Yatsu put his hand back on Coco’s shoulder and pushed her behind himself. “We are traveling to the far of country of Zenith, so surely your gift of gratitude would only heed our travels and cause more harm than good.”  
“Your gifts are waiting in the Oasis and is being looked after right now. I trust that suitable mounts for this journey couldn't oppose harm when your moving three times as fast.” Velvet laughed, knowing there would be no reason to deny this kind of an offer. Mounts in the snowy mountains never worked going up or down it, so Valiric never needed any. It was like she knew they were going to be leaving from the start and offered them something that they really couldn’t refuse at this time.  
“We politely refuse.” Yatsu said without any hesitation to deny the offer.  
“Yes, a mount is very much necessary when traveling… what?” Coco cringed, remembering the soreness of her feet when nearly walking all the way here from Valiric.   
“Oh, but it would be my pleasure.” Velvet shot back.  
“Yes, but-”  
“Yatsuhashi.” Coco cut him off before he could say anymore, his mouth shut tighter that it could split his skin. “We would love to accept your gift, Velvet, especially after reuniting with my comrades.”  
Yatsu tired to speak once more, but the act of Coco saying his full name once again almost made him choke. In that moment, Coco was aware of how much power she could really have over these two and how strong she could get when she tried.  
“You don’t have to worry.” Velvet took hold of Yatsu’s hand, misreading the situation. “It's the least we can do to offer something to the people who saved us. And I’m sure you’ll find our mounts to be quite fun.”  
Yatsu forced a smile and tried to pull away, but Velvet tightened her grip, as if saying he was not allowed to leave without them. One golden arm ring fastened on Velvet help keep her grip, as Yatsu attempts to pull her off him was easily misdirected and couldn’t get a hold on the smooth surface.  
Yatsu carried his strength with pride. No doubt a little weaker than Coco, but in spite that, he admired that trait.   
“Come now.” Coco stuttered. “We best be on out way. Fox!”  
With the all the eyes burning into her back, Coco made her way for the door. Penny opened it and stood aside, as Fox came forth and pushed Velvet and Yatsu along with him. The moment the doors closed, they all stood in silence, with two building up tension in the empty hall.  
“We’re off the a great start.” Fox said now smiling, swerving his head to avoid getting punched. They could have left the moment they knew something was going to be gained after this, but it would seem that Yatsu was only going to be stubborn.  
Coco couldn't leave him alone like this.  
They followed Panny in silence down the long corridors of the palace, each catching their own personal view of the sand, heat and colored glass. Coco was running her hand against the wall as they walked on, feeling the many forms of fabric, stone and dust that decorated the interior of the halls they passed.  
“Find something you like?” Fox reared his head next to Coco, more likely to get a conversation going with her than the other two. Scars littered his body over his tanned skin, scattered just about every where his skin was showed.  
Coco gave a quick jab, this time giving no intention of pulling it back. But instead of meeting with his tendered flesh, Coco now saw a smiling face over her other shoulder. Beads of sweat had formed over Fox’s skin and it didn’t take a blind man to know he was hot. But besides him, Yatsu who has not said a word, stood tall all the while making it apparent that he wasn’t going to let the heat bother him.  
“These cloths aren’t like anything I’ve see in Valiric, even the animals I find moungering around seem to be made out of something different.” Coco explained. “The leather is much to thin and breaks easy compared to bear or wolf.”  
“Too thin and breaks easy?” Velvet slowed her pace and stood next to Coco now, intrigued about the opinions of the fabric she had decorated herself.  
Coco panicked; her muscles tensed against her pale skin. She was given a chance to talk to Velvet, as Yatsu stayed closed to Penny in silence.   
“Leather is different all around.” Coco cried out like the words she spoke brought her physical pain. “Depending on the environment, the way animal skin grows changes to better suit its needs, your high… Velvet.”

***  
“Are you really not going to talk to her?” Coco leaned to Yatsu’s side to get a good look at his face. She expected a little bit of silence, but now they were at the Oasis and Yatsu hadn’t uttered a word since they left. “Do you really want to leave that badly? Or is it because of the escort?”  
Yatsu’s face stayed cold when he walked, not losing his rhythm to the desert wind on how it moved his clothing. “Tell me, what do you think in the future of Jili?”  
What an odd question Coco thought. Overall, she thought it was a great country. Well lived, well versed, and very different kind of fashion sense. She turned her head around at Velvet who’s been silently following them at the back of the group; smiling and waving whenever their eyes met. “Well, other than this heat, replace the sand with snow and it feels a lot like Valiric.”  
“With one major difference.” Yatsu added.  
Coco knew what he meant and felt that way as soon as she got here. Other than a few exceptions, these people didn’t know how to fight. “Is that why you want to leave so badly? The fear that this country is going to get ransacked like ours? You shouldn’t worry about it too much. We already scared Cardin’s army off so I doubt they’ll be back.”  
“It wasn’t them.” Yatsu turned his face a little and veered at Coco.  
“What do you mean it wasn’t them?!” Coco shouted enough that Penny looked over her shoulder.  
“Don’t you think it was odd on the exact nature of that fight?”  
Coco hated that about Yatsu. He never gave her a solid answer. “Lets see now,” Coco began thinking.  
The entire fight over Velvet felt like some rich prince having too much money and too much time on their hands. Having a private army of their own was a nice touch, but if it wasn’t them, that was merely for show. Or a diversion…  
“Hey Velvet. Was there any news on that Emerald person?”  
“I assure you, if there was any mention of Emerald, it would be in my best interest to inform you.” Velvet happy to be part of the conversation skipped over to Coco and walked beside her.


End file.
